OverpayingForAIPricing desk

Reasoning · 1 checks · max 800 tokens · benched 2026-09-16

Claude Opus 5 vs Claude Sonnet 5 vs Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Claude Haiku 4.5 on stacked discounts and tax

Anthropic models side by side on "Stacked discounts and tax": Claude Sonnet 5 scores 10/10; Claude Sonnet 5 is the cheapest answer scoring 8+ at $0.56 per 1,000 runs. Outputs, checks, judge reasons, latency and cost.

The prompt every model received

System

Think carefully, then give only the final answer in the requested format.

User

An item costs $250.00. A 20% discount is applied, then a $15.00 coupon is subtracted, and finally 8% sales tax is added to the resulting amount. What is the final price? Reply with only the amount in dollars to two decimal places, for example 12.34, with no currency symbol.

Rubric for the judge: The single correct answer 199.80 (250 x 0.8 = 200; 200 - 15 = 185; 185 x 1.08).

Side by side

Every cell is one OpenRouter call at temperature 0 with the prompt's token cap and reasoning effort "low" where the model supports it. Cost is usage × the catalogue rate in models.json. Quality is one judge call to anthropic/claude-haiku-4.5 against the prompt's rubric, cached per prompt version.

Claude Opus 5

anthropic/claude-opus-5

10/10
Latency
1.1s
Cost
$0.00130
Per 1,000
$1.30

121 in · 28 out (23 reasoning) · 1 words · checks 1/1

  • exact
199.80

Judge: The output matches the correct answer of 199.80 in the exact format requested (two decimal places, no currency symbol).

Claude Sonnet 5

anthropic/claude-sonnet-5

10/10
top judge scorecheapest scoring 8+
Latency
1.0s
Cost
$0.00056
Per 1,000
$0.56

121 in · 32 out (26 reasoning) · 1 words · checks 1/1

  • exact
199.80

Judge: The output matches the correct answer of 199.80 in the exact format requested (two decimal places, no currency symbol).

Claude Sonnet 4.6

anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6

10/10
Latency
719ms
Cost
$0.00106
Per 1,000
$1.06

95 in · 52 out (44 reasoning) · 1 words · checks 1/1

  • exact
199.80

Judge: The output matches the correct answer of 199.80 in the exact format requested (two decimal places, no currency symbol).

Claude Haiku 4.5

anthropic/claude-haiku-4.5

10/10
Latency
736ms
Cost
$0.00097
Per 1,000
$0.97

94 in · 176 out · 67 words · checks 0/1

  • exact
Let me work through this step-by-step.

Starting price: $250.00

Step 1: Apply 20% discount
20% of $250.00 = 0.20 × $250.00 = $50.00
Price after discount: $250.00 - $50.00 = $200.00

Step 2: Subtract $15.00 coupon
Price after coupon: $200.00 - $15.00 = $185.00

Step 3: Add 8% sales tax
8% of $185.00 = 0.08 × $185.00 = $14.80
Final price: $185.00 + $14.80 = $199.80

199.80

Judge: The output correctly calculates the final price as 199.80 through all three steps (discount, coupon, tax) and provides the answer in the exact format requested (bare number to two decimal places with no currency symbol).

Frequently asked

What does this prompt test?

Reasoning: The single correct answer 199.80 (250 x 0.8 = 200; 200 - 15 = 185; 185 x 1.08). The deterministic checks are exact.

Which model should I pick for this task?

If the judge's bar of 8/10 is good enough for you, Claude Sonnet 5 at $0.56 per 1,000 runs. If you need the top score, Claude Sonnet 5 at $0.56 per 1,000 runs.

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