Claude Opus vs Sonnet vs Haiku: Cost Comparison for OpenClaw
Anthropic offers three Claude 3 models at vastly different price points: Opus (most powerful, most expensive), Sonnet (balanced), and Haiku (fastest, cheapest). Choosing the right model for each task can significantly reduce your OpenClaw API costs. This guide breaks down the pricing, performance, and ideal use cases for each model.
Why This Is Hard to Do Yourself
These are the common pitfalls that trip people up.
Huge price differences
Opus costs 50x more than Haiku per token. Using Opus for simple tasks wastes massive amounts of money
Quality vs cost tradeoff
When does cheaper actually mean worse? For many tasks, Haiku performs identically to Opus
No clear guidance
Anthropic provides benchmarks but no practical guidance on which model to use for real-world OpenClaw tasks
Speed vs intelligence
Haiku is 3x faster than Opus but less capable at complex reasoning. How do you balance speed and capability?
Step-by-Step Guide
Understand the pricing breakdown
Compare exact costs per million tokens.
# Pricing (per 1M tokens, as of January 2025):
# Claude 3 Opus:
# Input: $15.00
# Output: $75.00
# Example: 10k input + 2k output = $0.30
# Claude 3.5 Sonnet:
# Input: $3.00
# Output: $15.00
# Example: 10k input + 2k output = $0.06
# Claude 3 Haiku:
# Input: $0.25
# Output: $1.25
# Example: 10k input + 2k output = $0.0050
# Haiku is 60x cheaper than Opus
# Sonnet is 5x cheaper than OpusCompare performance on benchmarks
Understand capability differences.
# Anthropic benchmark scores (higher is better):
# Complex Reasoning (GPQA):
# Opus: 50.4%
# Sonnet: 59.4% ← Sonnet beats Opus here!
# Haiku: 33.3%
# Code Generation (HumanEval):
# Opus: 84.9%
# Sonnet: 92.0% ← Sonnet wins again
# Haiku: 75.9%
# General Knowledge (MMLU):
# Opus: 86.8%
# Sonnet: 88.7%
# Haiku: 75.2%
# Speed (tokens per second):
# Haiku: ~100 tok/s (fastest)
# Sonnet: ~60 tok/s
# Opus: ~30 tok/s (slowest)Match models to task types
Use the right model for each job.
# Use Haiku for:
# - Summarization
# - Simple formatting (JSON, YAML, markdown)
# - Translation
# - Content moderation
# - Data extraction from structured text
# - Classification tasks
# - FAQ responses
# Use Sonnet for:
# - General conversation
# - Code generation
# - Content writing
# - Analysis of moderate complexity
# - Most day-to-day OpenClaw tasks
# Use Opus for:
# - Complex multi-step reasoning
# - Security audits
# - Architecture design
# - Debugging difficult issues
# - Research and analysis requiring deep thinkingWarning: Default OpenClaw routes everything to Opus. This is like using a Ferrari for grocery shopping — massive overkill for 80% of tasks.
Configure model selection in OpenClaw
Set up routing based on task type.
# In config/models.yaml:
models:
primary: anthropic/claude-3.5-sonnet # Default
task_routing:
simple: anthropic/claude-3-haiku
complex: anthropic/claude-3-opus
rules:
- keywords: ["summarize", "format", "translate"]
model: anthropic/claude-3-haiku
- keywords: ["analyze", "design", "security", "debug"]
model: anthropic/claude-3-opus
- default: anthropic/claude-3.5-sonnet
# Or use OpenRouter for automatic routingCalculate real-world cost scenarios
See actual savings from smart routing.
# Scenario: 1000 conversations per month
# All Opus (default):
# 1000 conversations × 15k avg tokens × $0.015/1k = $225/month
# Smart routing (60% Haiku, 30% Sonnet, 10% Opus):
# 600 × 15k × $0.0003/1k = $2.70
# 300 × 15k × $0.003/1k = $13.50
# 100 × 15k × $0.015/1k = $22.50
# Total: $38.70/month
# Savings: $186.30/month (83% reduction)
# Annual savings: $2,235.60Let Experts Configure Your Model Routing
Choosing the right model for each task requires analyzing your actual usage patterns and configuring smart routing rules. A specialist can audit your OpenClaw conversations, identify optimization opportunities, and set up routing that can significantly reduce API costs.
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