Anthropic launches Claude Sonnet 5 at a steep discount to its top model as the company races toward a blockbuster IPO

Anthropic announced the release of Claude Sonnet 5, an AI model positioned as offering near-flagship performance at a lower price point than the company's top-tier model. The new model scored 63.2% on the SWE-bench Pro agentic coding benchmark, compared to its predecessor Sonnet 4.6's score of 58.1%.

According to the article, Claude Sonnet 5 is being offered at a 'steep discount' relative to Anthropic's most advanced model. The company did not disclose the specific pricing structure but emphasised that the model delivers strong coding capabilities at a more accessible cost. The benchmark improvement of 5.1 percentage points represents an incremental gain in agentic coding performance.

The IPO timeline was not specified, but the launch is seen as a strategic move to expand Anthropic's user base and demonstrate commercial momentum ahead of the public offering. The company's pricing strategy reflects broader industry trends of increasing competition and pressure to lower costs for AI services.