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Model comparison

Amazon Nova 2 Lite vs Claude Sonnet 5

Amazon against Anthropic, compared on context, price, and attributed benchmark results.

Recorded profile verification October 2, 2026Individual provider fields may changeEvidence confidence: Medium — see receipts below

Amazon

Amazon Nova 2 Lite

Balanced

vs

Anthropic

Claude Sonnet 5

Balanced

AI model capability comparison
SpecificationAmazon Nova 2 LiteClaude Sonnet 5
ProviderAmazonAnthropic
TierBalancedBalanced
Context window1M1M
Max outputNot verifiedUnverified128K
Input / 1M tokensWinner: $0.30$2
Output / 1M tokensWinner: $2.50$10
WeightsClosedClosed
ParametersNot verifiedUnverifiedNot verifiedUnverified
Reasoning levelslow, medium, highlow, medium, high, xhigh, max
Modalitiestext, image, videotext, image
API model idamazon.nova-2-lite-v1:0claude-sonnet-5
ReleasedDecember 2, 2025June 30, 2026
Terminal-Bench 2.1 · source date Claude Sonnet 5: 2026-06-30Not verifiedUnverified80.4
Humanity's Last Exam · source date Claude Sonnet 5: 2026-06-30Not verifiedUnverified57.4
LiveBench · source date Claude Sonnet 5: 2026-09-05Not verifiedUnverified76

Dates beside benchmark scores refer to the linked source’s publication or capture date unless that source explicitly states when it measured the result. A shared URL alone does not establish comparable runs; unverified setups are marked. Prices are USD per million tokens at standard rates, excluding batch and caching discounts. Values we could not confirm from the provider are shown as “Not verified” rather than estimated.

Benchmark receipts

Where each score comes from, and how far it can be compared across models.

Pricing tiers

Amazon Nova 2 Lite: Bedrock Global Standard $0.30/$2.50 per MTok, cached input $0.075 and cache writes $0. Single-region $0.33/$2.75, cached $0.0825. Global Flex/Batch $0.15/$1.25; Global Priority $0.525/$4.375, cached $0.13125. Grounding costs $0.03 per request separately. Snapshot: September 30, 2026 native offer file; regional routes, service tiers and customization have separate meters.

Claude Sonnet 5: Standard $2/$10 per MTok with no long-context surcharge. Cache reads $0.20; 5-minute writes $2.50 and 1-hour writes $4. Batch $1/$5. US-only inference adds 10% where supported. Batch supports 300K output with output-300k-2026-03-24; standard stays 128K. Knowledge cutoff Jan 2026; retirement not sooner than June 30, 2027.

BalancedRecord checked October 2, 2026

Amazon Nova 2 Lite

Amazon’s hosted Nova 2 Lite reasoning model for everyday business workflows, with a 1M-token context window.

Best for

  • Document processing
  • Business automation
  • Bedrock integrations

Watch out

Extended thinking is optional and off by default. Low/medium/high controls apply when enabled; high forbids maxTokens, temperature and topP overrides. The model card advertises 64K output, but the high-thinking guide describes outputs exceeding 65K and sometimes reaching 128K, so no universal hard output cap is asserted. Reasoning tokens are billed as output. Use the route-specific US/EU/JP/global ID supported by your account; documents are inputs and text is generated.

BalancedRecord checked October 1, 2026

Claude Sonnet 5

Claude Sonnet 5 is Anthropic's previous Sonnet generation for high-volume agentic work at $2/$10.

Best for

  • Everyday generation
  • High-volume agents
  • Cost-sensitive work

Watch out

Active legacy. Sonnet 5.5 launched September 28 at the same token price, with breaking changes to thinking, forced tool use, computer use, advisor choices and progress blocks. Sonnet 5 rejects non-default temperature/top_p/top_k; test the exact target model before switching.

When the cheaper one wins

Amazon Nova 2 Lite is cheaper on output at $2.50 per million tokens against $10 for Claude Sonnet 5 — about 4.0×. Use the cheaper tier for classification, extraction, summarisation, and any task where the expensive model’s extra score does not change the accepted output. The expensive one only pays if your hardest task actually fails on the cheap tier. This compares standard short-context token rates, not total cost per accepted task. Include input, cache, context tiers, schedules, retries and review in your pilot.

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Evidence confidence: Medium

How strong and complete the evidence behind this comparison is — not a prediction of which model is better.

  • Pricing verified on both sides — Input and output rates are verified for both models.
  • 3/5 core specs verified on both sides — Not published for at least one side: max output, parameter count.
  • No directly aligned benchmark setup — No benchmark has matching cited sources, source dates, units, effort and recorded run details on both models.
  • Verified within the last 90 days — Older of the two catalog checks was 25 days ago.
  • Both models carry source citations — Each side has at least two catalog sources on record.

Source receipts

Each catalog figure was checked against the provider or an independent second source on the date shown.

Related comparisons

Diving deeper on one model? Amazon Nova 2 Lite · Claude Sonnet 5

Common questions

Amazon Nova 2 Lite vs Claude Sonnet 5

Answered from the verified figures on this page rather than general guidance.

Is Amazon Nova 2 Lite or Claude Sonnet 5 cheaper for input?
Amazon Nova 2 Lite is cheaper at $0.30 per million input tokens, against $2 for Claude Sonnet 5 — roughly 6.7× the price. Estimate both input and output token volume for your workload. These are base rates; Amazon Nova 2 Lite: Bedrock Global Standard $0.30/$2.50 per MTok, cached input $0.075 and cache writes $0. Single-region $0.33/$2.75, cached $0.0825. Global Flex/Batch $0.15/$1.25; Global Priority $0.525/$4.375, cached $0.13125. Grounding costs $0.03 per request separately. Snapshot: September 30, 2026 native offer file; regional routes, service tiers and customization have separate meters. Claude Sonnet 5: Standard $2/$10 per MTok with no long-context surcharge. Cache reads $0.20; 5-minute writes $2.50 and 1-hour writes $4. Batch $1/$5. US-only inference adds 10% where supported. Batch supports 300K output with output-300k-2026-03-24; standard stays 128K. Knowledge cutoff Jan 2026; retirement not sooner than June 30, 2027.
Is Amazon Nova 2 Lite or Claude Sonnet 5 cheaper for output?
Amazon Nova 2 Lite is cheaper at $2.50 per million output tokens, against $10 for Claude Sonnet 5 — roughly 4.0× the price. Estimate both input and output token volume for your workload. These are base rates; Amazon Nova 2 Lite: Bedrock Global Standard $0.30/$2.50 per MTok, cached input $0.075 and cache writes $0. Single-region $0.33/$2.75, cached $0.0825. Global Flex/Batch $0.15/$1.25; Global Priority $0.525/$4.375, cached $0.13125. Grounding costs $0.03 per request separately. Snapshot: September 30, 2026 native offer file; regional routes, service tiers and customization have separate meters. Claude Sonnet 5: Standard $2/$10 per MTok with no long-context surcharge. Cache reads $0.20; 5-minute writes $2.50 and 1-hour writes $4. Batch $1/$5. US-only inference adds 10% where supported. Batch supports 300K output with output-300k-2026-03-24; standard stays 128K. Knowledge cutoff Jan 2026; retirement not sooner than June 30, 2027.
Which has the larger context window, Amazon Nova 2 Lite or Claude Sonnet 5?
Both accept about 1M tokens of context, so document length will not decide between them.
Do Amazon Nova 2 Lite and Claude Sonnet 5 support the same reasoning levels?
Amazon Nova 2 Lite exposes low, medium, high, while Claude Sonnet 5 exposes low, medium, high, xhigh, max.
Should I use Amazon Nova 2 Lite or Claude Sonnet 5?
Both are classified in our balanced tier; this editorial grouping does not imply equal capability. Amazon Nova 2 Lite is a candidate for document processing; Claude Sonnet 5 is a candidate for everyday generation. Compare accuracy, tool reliability, latency and cost on representative tasks.

Next step

Choosing between them

The verified figures that separate this pair, computed from the catalog rather than restated boilerplate.

  • Input price: Amazon Nova 2 Lite costs $0.30 per 1M tokens versus $2 for Claude Sonnet 5 — a 6.7x difference at the headline tier.
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