Claude Fable 5 vs Grok 4.6

Grok 4.6 is cheaper at $2 per million input tokens, against $10 for Claude Fable 5 — roughly 5.0× the price. Estimate both input and output token volume for your workload. These are base rates; Claude Fable 5: Standard USD/MTok input/output $10/$50 with no long-context surcharge; cache reads $1, 5-minute writes $12.50, 1-hour writes $20. Batch $5/$25. US-only inference adds 10% to input/output and cache reads/writes on Anthropic-operated routes where supported; Foundry uses US Data Zone Standard. Bedrock and Google-managed Google Cloud have independent regional prices. Adaptive thinking is always on; default effort high. Knowledge cutoff January 2026; retirement not sooner than June 9, 2027. Historical access suspension June 12 and restoration July 1, 2026 remain separate events. Server-side tools can add usage fees; tool schemas/results and thinking consume billable tokens. Grok 4.6: Standard USD/MTok input/output $2/$6 below 200K prompt tokens; at 200K or more the full request bills $4/$12. Cached input $0.50/$1.00 for short/long requests. Batch discounts all token types by 20%; available regions and team access still apply. API Priority is 2x Standard for all token types and is billed only when the response confirms service_tier priority; it does not combine with Batch. US regional inference adds 10% to input/output/cache rates. Server tools have separate fees: web search/code execution/attachments $5 per 1,000 calls; X search $5 per 1,000 fetched posts or $10 per 1,000 profiles; collections search $2.50 per 1,000 calls. Search can fetch multiple billed items; reasoning and media tokens are also billable.

Grok 4.6 is cheaper at $6 per million output tokens, against $50 for Claude Fable 5 — roughly 8.3× the price. Estimate both input and output token volume for your workload. These are base rates; Claude Fable 5: Standard USD/MTok input/output $10/$50 with no long-context surcharge; cache reads $1, 5-minute writes $12.50, 1-hour writes $20. Batch $5/$25. US-only inference adds 10% to input/output and cache reads/writes on Anthropic-operated routes where supported; Foundry uses US Data Zone Standard. Bedrock and Google-managed Google Cloud have independent regional prices. Adaptive thinking is always on; default effort high. Knowledge cutoff January 2026; retirement not sooner than June 9, 2027. Historical access suspension June 12 and restoration July 1, 2026 remain separate events. Server-side tools can add usage fees; tool schemas/results and thinking consume billable tokens. Grok 4.6: Standard USD/MTok input/output $2/$6 below 200K prompt tokens; at 200K or more the full request bills $4/$12. Cached input $0.50/$1.00 for short/long requests. Batch discounts all token types by 20%; available regions and team access still apply. API Priority is 2x Standard for all token types and is billed only when the response confirms service_tier priority; it does not combine with Batch. US regional inference adds 10% to input/output/cache rates. Server tools have separate fees: web search/code execution/attachments $5 per 1,000 calls; X search $5 per 1,000 fetched posts or $10 per 1,000 profiles; collections search $2.50 per 1,000 calls. Search can fetch multiple billed items; reasoning and media tokens are also billable.

Claude Fable 5 accepts 1M tokens against 500K for Grok 4.6. This only matters if you routinely send very long documents or large codebases.

Claude Fable 5 exposes low, medium, high, xhigh, max, while Grok 4.6 exposes low, medium, high, xhigh.

Both are classified in our frontier tier; this editorial grouping does not imply equal capability. Claude Fable 5 is a candidate for long-running agents; Grok 4.6 is a candidate for coding agents. Compare accuracy, tool reliability, latency and cost on representative tasks.