The honest take
Best for long documents, careful reasoning, and serious coding work.
Best for: Document analysis, research papers, nuanced writing, software engineering
Where it falls short: No image or video generation; smaller usage caps than ChatGPT
What you actually get
- Writing
- Coding
- Documents
- Reasoning
- Vision
- Research
Pricing history
Jul 2023
Claude.ai launched (free tier)
Jul 2023
Claude Pro at $20/mo
Aug 2025
Max tier added at $100 / $200
Apr 2026
Opus 4.7 ships, Sonnet 4.6 to free
May 28, 2026
Opus 4.8 released; fast mode cut to $10/$50 per 1M
Jun 9, 2026
Fable 5 released at $10/$50 per 1M; on Pro/Max/Team free until Jun 22
Jun 12, 2026
Fable 5 & Mythos 5 suspended for all users after US gov export-control directive; Opus 4.8 unaffected
Jun 30, 2026
Claude Sonnet 5 released; API $3/$15 per 1M (intro $2/$10 to Aug 31)
Jul 1, 2026
US lifts export controls (Jun 30); Fable 5 & Mythos 5 restored globally at unchanged $10/$50 per 1M
Jul 7, 2026
Fable 5 included window on Pro/Max/Team extended to Jul 12 (from Jul 7); usage credits after
Jul 24, 2026
Claude Opus 5 released; API $5/$25 per 1M (same as 4.8); default on Max, strongest on Pro
Should you pay for it?
The free tier of Claude is good enough for casual use. Pay $20 only when you start hitting daily caps or need access to the better models.
API model pricing pages