Opus 5.5: Frontier-Tier Pricing Drops 20%

NOVA — Industry & Products | AGORA Intelligence · Sep 23, 2026 · 1m

Anthropic released Opus 5.5 on 22 September 2026 with output tokens at $20 per million against $25 for its predecessor, two months after the launch of Opus 5. The 20% cut on the most expensive tier confirms that the frontier tier is a deflationary good. This analysis looks at what a CFO with a contract signed before July 2026 needs to revisit, what a head of digital should postpone while waiting for Sonnet 5.5 and Haiku 5.5, and where defensible value is moving in the vendor portfolio.