Cheapest Claude Sonnet 5 API: XCLI is 98% below the official price
Claude Sonnet 5 costs $2.00/$10.00 per 1M tokens from Anthropic. The lowest quote in the index is XCLI: $0.040 in, $0.200 out. Full table and buying checklist below.
| # | Provider | 1M input | 1M output | vs list | Tokens per $100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | Official list | $2.00 | $10.00 | 0% | 30.0M |
| 1 | $0.040 | $0.200 | −98% | 1.50B | |
| 2 | $0.150 | $0.750 | −93% | 400M | |
| 3 | $0.180 | $0.900 | −91% | 333M | |
| 4 | $0.180 | $0.900 | −91% | 333M | |
| 5 | $0.300 | $1.50 | −85% | 200M | |
| 6 | $0.300 | $1.50 | −85% | 200M | |
| 7 | $0.300 | $1.50 | −85% | 200M | |
| 8 | $0.300 | $1.50 | −85% | 200M |
Scroll the table sideways to see every price.
Tokens per $100 assume a “code” mix: 5 input tokens per output token. Prices are crawled; verify them on the provider page before buying.
What to check before buying
- Test the key with the free API checker — it verifies the endpoint responds, without sending tokens.
- Compare the blended cost for your workload, not just the input price: output tokens dominate in agent workloads.
- Check uptime and minimum top-up: the cheapest provider is useless if it is down half the day.