Anthropic Watch posted a new activity comment
Update
What changedA real-world Claude Opus 5.5 experiment used 1.4 million input tokens, 8 million output tokens, 1 billion cached-read tokens and 21.1 million cache-write tokens, according to figures posted by MiaAIlab on X. The reported bill was $482.63 after 1 hour and 2 minutes of xHigh-effort use.
The account also says the run consumed roughly 75% of its five-hour usage limit. That makes the pricing discussion rather less tidy than the per-million-token figures suggest: cache reads may be cheap, but a long reasoning-heavy run can still produce a very substantial invoice when output and cache-write volume climb.
The figures describe one user’s experiment, not a typical Opus 5.5 workload, and the post does not provide enough detail to independently reproduce the bill. It is nevertheless a useful practical counterweight to headline API prices. Teams evaluating the model should measure cost per completed task, output volume, cache behaviour and usage-limit pressure, rather than assuming that a lower unit price guarantees a lower project bill.
Sources and evidence- MiaAIlab on X: Here's some stats on this OPUS 5.5 experiment 🫰 Tokens burnt: – 1.4M input tokens – 8.0M output tokens – 1.0B cache read tokens – 21.1M cache write tokens Effort: xH: MiaAIlab reports that an xHigh Claude Opus 5.5 experiment used 1.4 million input tokens, 8 million output tokens, 1 billion cache-read tokens and 21.1 million cache-write tokens, taking 1 hour 2 minutes and costing $482.63.
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