Claude 4 Opus is Anthropic’s flagship model, designed for deep, multi‑step coding and reasoning tasks. It outperforms competitors like OpenAI’s GPT‑4.1.
Introduction
Claude 4 Opus is Anthropic’s flagship model within the Claude 4 range, released May 22 2025. It handles coding, deep thinking, and long‑duration tasks with ease due to its hybrid nature, alternating between immediate answers and hours‑long “extended thinking” sessions. With state‑of‑the‑art performance on benchmarks and real-world developer acclaim, Opus 4 establishes a new standard for AI‑powered engineering workflows. It is easily integrated through web, API, GitHub Copilot, Bedrock, and Vertex AI. Its sole drawback is expense, making strategic use critical for heavy usage.
Hybrid Reasoning
Tool‑Integrated
Memory‑Capable
Enterprise‑Ready
Review
Claude 4 Opus is Anthropic’s flagship model, designed for deep, multi‑step coding and reasoning tasks. It outperforms competitors like OpenAI’s GPT‑4.1 on coding benchmarks (72.5% vs 54.6% on SWE‑Bench) and can work continuously for up to seven hours, making it ideal for large codebase refactoring or complex agentic workflows. The hybrid design allows for both rapid replies and “extended thinking” sessions. Integration of tools (e.g. web search, code execution) and local file memory further enhance dependability. Although very powerful, usage‑based pricing (input/output at $15/$75 per million tokens) can be costly without optimization; prompt caching and batching can reduce costs by as much as 90%.
Features
World‑class coding & reasoning
Leads SWE‑Bench (72.5%) and Terminal‑Bench (43.2%) with marathon performance.
Hybrid reason engine
Instant vs prolonged thinking modes with tooling.
Meta tool use
Invokes web search, code execution, and other integrations simultaneously.
Memory assistance
Capable of storing and remembering important facts from local files for long-term context.
IDE & GitHub integration
Integrates into VS Code, JetBrains, Copilot Chat, Amazon Bedrock, Vertex AI.
Billing optimizations
Token usage billing with immediate caching and batch approaches that can significantly lower costs.
Best Suited for
Software Developers & Engineers
maintaining big codebases, extensive refactoring, and multi-file changes.
AI Agent Builders
creating independent agents with multi-step workflows and tool orchestration.
Business Data Teams
reasoning about documents, SQL, Excel files with memory and retrieval.
Research & Analysis Experts
requiring persistent conclusions and logic pipelines.
DevOps & Automation Engineers
leveraging Copilot and Claude Code for CI/CD activities.
Strengths
Superb coding accuracy and diagnostics.
Marathon-capable: hours‑long activity without context loss.
Tool‑aware, memory capable, and safe.
Natively integrated in leading IDEs and cloud services.
Weakness
Computationally expensive token-based cost, particularly for output.
Complexity needs careful management and timely structure.
Getting started with: step by step guide
Getting started with Claude 4 is easy:
Step 1: Sign Up or Upgrade.
Sign up or sign in to Claude.ai app (web, iOS, Android). Free users get Sonnet 4 access; upgrade to Pro ($17/month year), Max, Team, or Enterprise to get Opus 4.
Step 2: Select Claude 4 Opus.
In model picker, select Opus 4. To use for more in-depth tasks enable “extended thinking” mode.
Step 3: Connect Tools.
Turn on integrations, web search, file upload, code run, MCP connectors using web UI or API.
Step 4: Use in IDEs.
Install Anthropic plugin or use Copilot Chat with Opus enabled for enterprise or Pro+ plans.
Step 5: Monitor & Optimize Usage.
Monitor token usage and expenses on dashboard. Implement prompt caching or batching to eliminate up to 90% of input expenses.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is Claude Opus 4?
A: Anthropic’s top model for heavy‑duty coding and multi‑step reasoning, released May 22 2025.
Q: Is Opus 4 included by default?
A: No. It’s only on paid Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise plans; free users get Sonnet 4 only.
Q: How does billing work?
A: Pay per token. Input at $15/m, output at $75/m. Use caching and batch to reduce input costs by orders of magnitude.
Pricing
Clause 4 has various pricing tiers:
Claude.ai Pro
$17/month
$17/month (billed annually $204/year) includes Opus 4 access.
Max, Team, Enterprise
$100/user/month
from $100+/user/month for increased usage, priority support.
Cost saving
$3.75/month
caching lowers input to $3.75/m, batching cuts costs in half.
Claude 4 also has API options such as:
- API, Opus 4: $15 input / $75 output per million tokens.
- API, Sonnet 4: $3/$15 per million.
Alternatives
Claude 4 Sonnet
cheaper, instant‑mode friendly at $3/$15 token pricing.
OpenAI GPT‑4o
good at general tasks but lags behind marathon code skills.
Google Gemini 1.5 Pro
similar reasoning but less coding‑focused.
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Claude 4 Opus
Claude 4 Opus is Anthropic’s flagship model, designed for deep, multi‑step coding and reasoning tasks. It outperforms competitors like OpenAI’s GPT‑4.1.
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