Claude Opus 4.8: Specs, Pricing & Best Use Cases

Claude Opus 4.8 is Anthropic's flagship model, released May 27, 2026 as an upgrade to Opus 4.7. It ships with a 1M-token context window on by default, adjustable reasoning effort, and new agent-orchestration features in Claude Code, at the same price as its predecessor. This guide covers Opus 4.8's specs, pricing, benchmarks, and where it's actually worth using — plus how it fits into Chat Smith's current model lineup.

Claude Opus 4.8 (model ID: claude-opus-4-8) is Anthropic's largest generally available model, built for long-running, autonomous agents. It builds on the coding and agentic strengths of Opus 4.7, with stronger performance on complex, multi-step tasks and more reliable execution across extended workflows — large codebases, multi-stage debugging, and end-to-end project orchestration.

It launched alongside user-level effort control on claude.ai, letting people dial how much reasoning the model applies to a task, and a new "Dynamic Workflows" feature in Claude Code that lets one agent plan, fan out into many parallel subagents, and merge the results in a single session. As of June 2026, Opus 4.8 is no longer Anthropic's most capable model overall — that title moved to the Mythos-tier models — but it remains the flagship of the Opus line.

Opus 4.8 introduces user-adjustable effort levels — low, high, extra, and max, with an xhigh option surfaced in Claude Code. The default (high) uses a similar token budget to Opus 4.7's default but performs better, while dialing down to low cuts both tokens and latency for calls that need Opus-class capability without maximum depth.

Unlike earlier Opus releases where the 1M-token window was a beta feature, Opus 4.8 ships with it on by default alongside a 128K token output limit. That's enough headroom to keep an entire codebase, a long legal document set, or hours of agent transcript in context without chunking.

Anthropic reports Opus 4.8 is roughly four times less likely than its predecessor to let flaws in its own code pass unremarked, and it scores 84% on Online-Mind2Web, a browser-agent benchmark. Claude Code's new Workflows primitive lets the model plan a large task and fan it out across parallel subagents inside one session — useful for sprawling refactors or multi-stage research.

Pricing didn't change between the two releases, which makes Opus 4.8 close to a straight upgrade for anyone already paying for Opus-class capability. The bigger shift is in control and reliability: adjustable effort levels and Dynamic Workflows give teams more ways to manage cost and orchestrate larger tasks, which matters more for production agents than raw benchmark gains.

Opus 4.8 is built for depth and autonomy rather than high-volume, low-cost calls. It's strongest in:

• Long-running autonomous coding agents. Large-scale refactors and unattended engineering workloads benefit from the improved code-review reliability and Dynamic Workflows.
• Multi-stage debugging across large codebases. The default 1M-token context window keeps an entire project in view without splitting it across calls.
• Knowledge work needing consistency. Legal review, financial analysis, and long-document drafting benefit from Opus 4.8's higher signal-to-noise output over long sessions.
• Browser and computer-use agents. Strong Online-Mind2Web performance makes it a solid pick for agents that need to navigate real interfaces.
• Cost-controlled reasoning depth. Adjustable effort levels let teams use Opus-class capability at lower cost for calls that don't need maximum depth.

Claude Opus 4.8 itself isn't integrated into Chat Smith. The platform currently offers Claude Sonnet 5, Anthropic's balanced mid-tier model, alongside frontier models from OpenAI, Google, and xAI — all in one chat app.

• Run coding and research tasks on Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Sonnet 5 in the same interface
• Compare Claude's answers against GPT-5.6 Sol or Gemini 2.5 Pro
• Switch models mid-conversation without losing your chat history

Claude Opus 4.8 is a meaningful step for teams running autonomous agents at scale — a bigger default context window, adjustable effort, and more reliable code review, all at unchanged pricing from Opus 4.7. It's not currently available on Chat Smith, but Claude Sonnet 5 covers most of the same day-to-day use cases alongside other leading models in one app.

1. What is Claude Opus 4.8?

Claude Opus 4.8 is Anthropic's flagship Opus-tier model, released May 27, 2026, with a 1M-token context window on by default, adjustable reasoning effort, and improved reliability for long-running autonomous agents.

2. How much does Claude Opus 4.8 cost?

Claude Opus 4.8 costs $5.00 per million input tokens and $25.00 per million output tokens on the standard API tier — unchanged from Opus 4.7. Fast Mode costs $10/$50 per million tokens for about 2.5x the speed.

3. Can I access Claude Opus 4.8 through Chat Smith?

No, Claude Opus 4.8 isn't integrated into Chat Smith. The platform currently offers Claude Sonnet 5 instead, alongside other leading models in one app.