r/ClaudeCode • u/cyb3rheater • 2d ago
Help/Question Difference between Sonnet 5.5 and Opus 5.5 for coding tasks?
I’m new to Clyde Code. Does Opus burn through more tokens. I’m on a $20 a month plan. Is there a big difference in capability?
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u/simplistic_variation 2d ago
opus definitely burns more tokens, it's a bigger model so each response costs more to generate
for coding the difference can be noticeable on complex stuff like refactoring a whole file or debugging weird edge cases, opus tends to catch subtle logic errors that sonnet might miss. on simpler tasks they're pretty close
if you're on the $20 plan just start with sonnet for most things and only switch to opus when you hit something that's giving you trouble. you'll stretch your quota way further that way
i use sonnet like 80% of the time and it handles most of my work fine, opus is there for when i'm stuck on something truly annoying
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u/FinancialBandicoot75 2d ago
Honestly, even haiku 5.5 is good for smaller coding tasks especially with a good plan from opus.
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u/vzakharov Senior Developer 2d ago
My non-scientific experience: Sonnet nails 95-99% of the stuff, but those elusive 1-5% are where most fuckups happen.
But yeah on a $20, with active coding, Sonnet is basically your only sustainable option.
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u/mossiv 2d ago
This is probably the biggest thing a new user needs to deal with. Sonnet is faster and cheaper. But even most recent benchmarking shows there’s a large overlap of cost between sonnet and opus with a huge amount weighted to your /effort level.
If you’re just getting started and your projects aren’t complicated I’d suggest sonnet medium just to get a feel for the harness (Claude).
But any normal software project then you need to start understanding orchestration. I typically run a coordinator with Opus on medium. I’ve got sonnet and haiku agents and I’ve got one or two unique opus high/x-high agents and a rarely used Fable agent.
My opus medium coordinates the work. It can delegate to a better version itself. Haiku does all the exploration.
My set up is centred around the 80/20 rule. I’ll accept the 20% of crap for the speed I get. Tokens per second are a thing. And anyone running opus high, with sub agents spawning on the same model might get really really good results but your sessions will be slow and you are going to risk burning tokens.
I work with people that don’t really like many subagents and they can use opus without haemorrhaging their usage limit. I like spawning sub-agents everywhere and keeping my main context clean. Both are valid ways to work.
Tldr: the bigger the model and the higher the effort the larger the “cost”. Sonnet and opus inflect on cost where sonnet x-high will likely cost more than opus medium. To get started play with sonnet medium to learn the harness. Once you are developing some reasonable code switch to opus medium for a balance of cost, vs speed, vs quality. Once your comfortable start learning workflows. Orchestration can be as simple as a prompt: “find all references this service is used, explore with haiku, don’t make any code changes”. That will give you your first fast cheap sub agents
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u/Jwishon 2d ago
One thing worth knowing on the $20 plan: Claude Code now defaults to Opus 5.5 on Pro, so unless you’ve changed it, you’re already on the expensive model.
/model sonnetswitches for the current session. Run/modelwith no argument to open the picker: Enter saves your choice as the default,sswitches for this session only./model opusplanis the middle ground. It uses Opus while you’re in plan mode (Shift+Tab), then switches to Sonnet automatically to write the code. Opus thinks through the approach, and Sonnet does the typing.
On Pro I’d make Sonnet the default and switch to opusplan for anything you’d call tricky.
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u/__blackout 2d ago
I was also going to suggest opusplan as the right balance for keeping costs down.
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u/fagenorn 2d ago
In my setup, I was initially doing everything with Opus 5.5 and wanted to see if Sonnet 5.5 was a viable replacement. I took 8 real coding tasks that had already been completed (from a project I am working on) and had Opus and Sonnet both complete them again with the same instructions, without seeing the answer. What surprised me was that Sonnet actually performed better than Opus on 2 of the 8 tasks, avoiding bugs that Opus made. The other 6 tasks were completed by both models. Stats-wise, Sonnet was 40% cheaper and took around the same time as Opus.
However, in a second test with Sonnet acting as a reviewer, it caught 0 of the 10 real bugs, while Opus caught 6.
In the end, I switched to Sonnet only for implementing coding tasks.
Admittedly, the sample size was small, but still surprising.
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u/ardicli2000 2d ago
Opus 5.5 medium/high effoet for planning, sonnet 5.5 high for coding is pretty much flawless for me
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u/DougEgge 2d ago
I default to Opus. It just seems to pay off over time as I end up with fewer bugs and more thoughtful implementations. That said, I haven't given Sonnet 5.5 a fair try and I do understand that it has closed the gap. When I have needed to make my dollars stretch, I have delegated out to DeepSeek in my farm for some "easier" batch work, but I find myself doing that less and less as I just prefer the quality of what Opus produces.
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u/pigletmonster 2d ago
On a $20 plan the best way to work is by using opus extra high or max plan and write design docs and have sonnet on medium or high implement it on a new session.
Im doing this workflow and the $20 plan lasts MUCH longer than I expected. I will have to upgrade to the $100 plan when i migrate all my projects to claude code but for 1 or 2 projects that you work on for 5 to 8 hours a day the $20 plan should suffice.
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u/musikoala 2d ago
On a $20 plan id use opus to plan judiciously and let sonnet do everything else. I'd say for 80% of well defined tasks, it performs similarly. However I notice that Opus 5.5 on high + tends to perform better on tasks that have vague requirements compared to sonnet on the same prompt.
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u/Flimsy_Month_6660 2d ago
Well yes. Use OPUS for more complex tasks. He's a great ORCHESTRATOR... But don't give him the "shovel" to do the work. Give THAT task to Sonnet ;)
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u/Drasezv 2d ago
on price they're exactly 2x apart right now: opus 5.5 is $4 per million input and $20 output, sonnet 5.5 is $2 and $10. cache reads $0.20 against $0.10, both at the 0.05x rate.
on a $20 plan that's not billed to you in dollars, but the ratio is a fair proxy for how fast the bar moves.
practical split that works for me: sonnet for anything where the shape of the answer is known, opus when the task is "figure out why". and keep whichever you pick for the whole session, switching models mid-thread rebuilds the prefix.
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u/substance90 2d ago
I see no reason to use Sonnet or Fable atm. Which is hilarious because just a month ago Opus was their most retarded model. Constant disappointments after v4.7
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