Claude API vs OpenAI API

As of Nov 6, 2026, the Claude API and the OpenAI API cost the same per token at the top and bottom of their ranges, but they are not the same product. OpenAI sells more: realtime voice, speech, transcription, image generation and embeddings, none of which the Claude API offers, and its GPT-6.1 Sol costs half as much as Claude Opus 5.5 per token. Claude charges no surcharge for long prompts up to 1M tokens, has cheaper cache reads on its top models, and leads the public coding boards. Equal list prices do not mean equal bills: tokenizers and the amount each model thinks differ, so cost per finished task is the number that matters.

Sources: Claude pricing, Claude models overview, OpenAI API pricing, OpenAI models, all read Nov 6, 2026.

Learn more: OpenAI API on chatgpt.vi.ki, OpenAI API Pricing on chatgpt.vi.ki and OpenAI API vs Claude API on chatgpt.vi.ki

Verdict by task

Price per token

OpenAI wins in the middle; the ends are tied. At the top, Claude Fable 5.1 and GPT-6 Astra both list at $10 / $50, and at the bottom Claude Haiku 5.5 and GPT-6 Luna both list at $0.10 / $0.50 (Claude pricing). In between, OpenAI's GPT-6.1 Sol, which OpenAI calls "Near-Astra performance" at lower cost (OpenAI models), costs $2 / $10 against $4 / $20 for Claude Opus 5.5, and GPT-6.1 Terra at $1 / $5 undercuts Claude Sonnet 5.5 at $2 / $10. Details are on Claude API Pricing.

Cost per task

OpenAI is far cheaper per result on the independent boards. On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, Claude Opus 5.5 at max effort scores 59 at $10.04 a task, and GPT-6.1 Sol at max effort scores 55 at $1.27 a task. On Terminal-Bench 4.0, the Codex run on GPT-6.1 Sol cost $634.24 for 58.18%, and the Claude Code run on Opus 5.5 cost $4,718.65 for 64.85%. Lower effort narrows the gap: Opus 5.5 at high effort costs $3.46 a task on the same index, for a score of 52. Anthropic also notes that Claude 4.7 and later models use a tokenizer that makes about 30% more tokens from the same text.

Quality for coding and agents

Claude leads. Claude Opus 5.5 is first on Terminal-Bench 4.0 (64.85%, inside Claude Code) and on WebDev Arena (1810 against 1773 for GPT-6 Astra), and second on the Artificial Analysis index (59 against 57 for GPT-6 Astra). OpenAI leads ARC-AGI-2, where GPT-6 Astra scores 95.0% against 93.3% for Opus 5.5, and, on Anthropic's own table, AutomationBench and Terminal-Bench-Science (Introducing Claude Opus 5.5). More on Claude Benchmarks.

Long context

Claude wins. Claude 4.6 and later models, except Haiku 5.5, bill a 900K-token request at the same per-token rate as a 9K one (Claude pricing). OpenAI's long-context prices start above 272K input tokens: GPT-6 Astra goes from $10 / $50 to $20 / $75. Both windows are about a million tokens (Claude Context Window).

Prompt caching

Claude is cheaper to read from cache; OpenAI keeps entries longer. Claude's cache reads cost 10% of input, and only 5% on Opus 5.5 and Sonnet 5.5 and 2.5% on Fable 5.1; writes cost 1.25x input for five minutes or 2x for one hour (Claude pricing). OpenAI's cached input is 10% of input on GPT-6 Astra ($1.00 against Claude Fable 5.1's $0.25), and since Oct 20, 2026 it offers 12-hour caching, with writes at 2.5x input (OpenAI changelog). Claude's cache reads also do not count toward input rate limits (Rate limits). See Prompt Caching.

Voice, audio, images and embeddings

OpenAI wins outright. Its API sells realtime voice (gpt-realtime-2.1), speech and transcription, image generation (gpt-image-2.6) and embeddings from $0.02 per million tokens. The Claude API lists none of these; for embeddings, Anthropic points developers to Voyage AI (Embeddings). OpenAI still lists fine-tuning for older models, though it says it is winding that platform down (OpenAI API pricing).

Tools and agents

Even, with different shapes. Both offer tool use, structured outputs, web search at $10 per 1,000 searches, code execution, computer use and MCP. Claude's code execution gives 1,550 free hours per organization a month, then $0.05 an hour, and is free alongside web search; OpenAI charges per 20-minute container session from $0.03. For hosted agents, Anthropic sells Managed Agents at $0.08 per session-hour plus tokens, and the Claude Agent SDK; OpenAI has an Agents API with a managed Codex harness (public beta since Sep 10, 2026), the Agents SDK and ChatKit, and shut down its Assistants API on Aug 26, 2026 (OpenAI changelog).

Rate limits

Different systems; neither is simply higher. Claude has Start, Build and Scale tiers with monthly spend caps of $500, $1,000 and $200,000; Claude Opus 5.5 gets 4,000 requests a minute and 2,000,000 input tokens a minute at Start, and 13,000 and 10,000,000 at Scale. OpenAI cut its tiers to three (Build, Launch, Grow) on Oct 6, 2026 (OpenAI changelog); GPT-6 Astra gets 5,000 requests and 1,000,000 tokens a minute at Build, up to 15,000 and 40,000,000 at Grow (GPT-6 Astra). See Claude API Rate Limits.

Speed tiers

OpenAI offers more. Claude's fast mode runs Opus 5.5 up to 2.5x faster at $8 / $40, twice the standard price. OpenAI's Fast tier doubles the price, and its Ultrafast tier for GPT-6 Astra costs $60 / $300, six times standard.

Free tier and credits

Neither has a standing free tier; Google's Gemini API does (Gemini API pricing). New Claude accounts get a small amount of free credit to test (Claude pricing). Both companies now attach API credits to subscriptions: Claude Max includes $100 a month, Claude Ultra $200 and Team up to $500 pooled (API credits for Max, Ultra, and Team plans); ChatGPT Pro and Business subscribers can claim up to $500 a month since Oct 28, 2026 (OpenAI changelog).

Data and privacy

A tie on defaults. Neither trains on API data by default: OpenAI says API data is "not used to train or improve OpenAI models" unless you opt in, and keeps abuse-monitoring logs up to 30 days (OpenAI, Your data); Anthropic does not train on API inputs or outputs by default (Anthropic Privacy Center). Both offer zero data retention to approved customers, and both charge about 10% more for US-only or regional processing (Claude pricing; OpenAI API pricing).

Cloud availability

Claude wins on reach. Every current Claude model runs on the Claude API, Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud and Microsoft Foundry (Claude models overview); see Claude on Cloud Platforms. Anthropic also promises at least 60 days' notice before retiring a model, and current models will not retire before Sep 2027 (Model deprecations).

When to choose the OpenAI API

Choose OpenAI if your product needs voice, speech, transcription, images or embeddings from one provider, or if cost per task matters more than the last few points of quality: GPT-6.1 Sol and GPT-6.1 Terra are much cheaper than Claude Opus 5.5 and Sonnet 5.5 for strong results. It also suits teams that want 12-hour caching or an Ultrafast tier.

When to choose the Claude API

Choose Claude for coding agents, long documents and agentic work where quality leads cost: Claude Opus 5.5 tops Terminal-Bench 4.0 and WebDev Arena, a 1M-token prompt costs no more per token than a short one, and cache-heavy agents pay less for each cache read. It also fits companies already committed to AWS, Google Cloud or Azure. Many teams use both, routing voice and embeddings to OpenAI and coding work to Claude.

What reviewers found

18:28 In a May 26, 2026 test, Nate Herk of Nate Herk | AI Automation ran the same three builds in Claude Code on Claude Opus 4.7 and in Codex on GPT-5.5, both older than today's models. He noted that the two then shared a $5 input price while GPT-5.5's output cost $5 more per million tokens; even so, Claude wrote far more output tokens (about 83,000 against 18,000 on one build), so at API rates his Claude runs came to about $11 against $7 for Codex.

8:32 In an Aug 27, 2026 video, Tim Ruscica of Tech With Tim compared the list prices of the time: GPT-5.6 Sol at $5 / $30 per million tokens, Claude Opus 5 at $5 / $25 and Fable 5 at $10 / $50, and called OpenAI's cheapest model, Luna at $0.20 / $1.20, the standout, with "nothing in the Anthropic lineup" near it. Prices have moved since: on Nov 6, 2026 Claude Haiku 5.5 and GPT-6 Luna both list at $0.10 / $0.50.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Claude API cheaper than the OpenAI API? Not overall. As of Nov 6, 2026, the top and small tiers cost the same per token, and OpenAI's mid tiers (GPT-6.1 Sol at $2 / $10, GPT-6.1 Terra at $1 / $5) are cheaper than Claude Opus 5.5 ($4 / $20) and Sonnet 5.5 ($2 / $10). Claude is cheaper for long prompts and cache reads.

Does the Claude API have a realtime voice API? No. The Claude API lists no realtime voice, speech, transcription or image generation; OpenAI's API sells all four.

Does Anthropic have an embeddings API? No. Anthropic does not offer its own embedding model and points developers to Voyage AI; OpenAI sells text-embedding-3-small and text-embedding-3-large.

Which API is better for coding agents, Claude or OpenAI? Claude leads the public boards: Claude Opus 5.5 is first on Terminal-Bench 4.0 and WebDev Arena as of Nov 6, 2026. OpenAI's GPT-6.1 Sol delivers about 90% of that score for a fraction of the cost.

Can I use my ChatGPT or Claude subscription for API calls? Partly. Claude Max, Ultra and Team include monthly Claude API credits ($100, $200 and up to $500), and ChatGPT Pro and Business subscribers can claim up to $500 a month in OpenAI API credits. Claude Pro and ChatGPT Plus include none.

Sources

• 100 Hours Testing Claude Code vs ChatGPT Codex (honest results), Nate Herk | AI Automation, May 26, 2026 (video)
• Codex vs Claude - an Honest Comparison, Tech With Tim, Aug 27, 2026 (video)
• Pricing, Claude Docs, read Nov 6, 2026
• Models overview, Claude Docs, read Nov 6, 2026
• Model deprecations, Claude Docs, read Nov 6, 2026
• Rate limits, Claude Docs, read Nov 6, 2026
• Embeddings, Claude Docs, read Nov 6, 2026
• API credits for Max, Ultra, and Team plans, Claude Docs, read Nov 6, 2026
• Is my data used for model training? (commercial), Anthropic Privacy Center, read Nov 6, 2026
• Introducing Claude Opus 5.5, Anthropic, Sep 22, 2026
• API pricing, OpenAI, read Nov 6, 2026
• Models, OpenAI, read Nov 6, 2026
• GPT-6 Astra, OpenAI, read Nov 6, 2026
• Developer changelog, OpenAI, read Nov 6, 2026
• Your data, OpenAI, read Nov 6, 2026
• Gemini API pricing, Google, read Nov 6, 2026
• Terminal-Bench 4.0 leaderboard, tbench.ai, read Nov 6, 2026
• WebDev Arena, Arena, read Nov 6, 2026
• LLM Leaderboard, Artificial Analysis, read Nov 6, 2026
• ARC Prize Leaderboard, ARC Prize Foundation, read Nov 6, 2026