Claude Balanced Verified 19 Aug 2026

Claude Sonnet 4.6

The previous everyday workhorse, replaced as default by Sonnet 5.

Previous generation. Use Claude Sonnet 5 instead. Replaced as the default across Claude's consumer and developer products on 30 Jun 2026. Same list price as Sonnet 5.

Maker: Anthropic
Context: 1M tokens
Pricing: $3 / 1M tokens / $15 / 1M tokens

Best for

Day-to-day drafting, rewriting, and summarising
Fast iteration loops where you refine across several turns
Pinned production workflows you haven't migrated yet

Prompting quirks

Same structure tricks as Opus, lower cost

XML tags and explicit roles work identically. Reach for Sonnet first and only escalate when the answer genuinely disappoints.

Give it an output format up front

Specify "answer as a 5-row table" or "max 120 words" in the prompt. Sonnet honours format constraints tightly, which keeps outputs short and cheap.

Copy-paste example

Tuned for Claude Sonnet 4.6. Swap in your own content where marked.

Summarise interview notes into insights

<notes>
{paste raw interview notes}
</notes>
Pull out the top 5 user pains. For each: a one-line quote that evidences
it, and how often it appeared. Table only, no preamble.

Facts verified against the official Anthropic docs on 19 August 2026.