Cheaper per Token, Yet Pricier per Task: How Claude Opus 5.5 Pairs a Price Cut with Deeper Thinking
Anthropic released Claude Opus 5.5 on October 20, 2026. Per-token prices dropped about 20%, yet at max effort the cost per task was reported to rise by roughly 20% instead. Here's what's behind the price-cut headline, and how to tame it with reasoning-effort settings in your operations.