# Anthropic’s Fable 5 accounts for just 6% of purchased tokens as cheaper Opus 5 steals the show > Source: > Published: 2026-08-23 23:41:03+00:00 Via tomshardware.com # Anthropic’s Fable 5 accounts for just 6% of purchased tokens as cheaper Opus 5 steals the show Anthropic's most expensive AI model is struggling to find an audience as users flock to its half-price sibling that performs nearly as well Anthropic built its most powerful AI model ever, slapped a premium price tag on it, and watched customers shrug. Claude Fable 5, the company’s flagship “Mythos-class” model launched on June 9, 2026, has captured just 6% of total tokens purchased in its first two months on the market. For a model positioned as the pinnacle of Anthropic’s AI capabilities, that’s a remarkably thin slice of the pie. Even measured by revenue, where Fable 5’s higher prices should inflate its share, the model accounts for only 11.4% of earnings. ## The price tag problem Fable 5 costs $10 per million input tokens and $50 per million output tokens. Anthropic released Claude Opus 5 on July 24, barely six weeks after Fable 5’s debut, priced at exactly half: $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output tokens. Opus 5 matches or exceeds Fable 5’s performance across many benchmarks. When a model that costs 50% less delivers comparable results, the math isn’t complicated. Developers and enterprises ran the numbers and made the obvious call. Anthropic frames this as intentional segmentation rather than cannibalization. Fable 5 is designed for “long-horizon projects,” the kind of complex, multi-step reasoning tasks where marginal improvements in capability justify the premium. Opus 5, meanwhile, handles “everyday high-value work” for broader enterprise needs. ## What this means for Anthropic’s strategy The company has already started adjusting how users access Fable 5, including temporary subscription inclusions and shifts to usage-based credits. These aren’t the moves of a company watching its premium product fly off the shelves. They’re the moves of a company trying to get more people to actually try the thing. Anthropic appears to be settling into a dual-market approach. The strategy banks on a small cohort of power users paying the Fable 5 premium. Meanwhile, Opus 5 and other lower-tier models handle the volume. If Fable 5’s share stays in the single digits, it raises questions about whether Anthropic can sustain the economics of developing ultra-premium models. A model that generates 11.4% of revenue while presumably consuming a disproportionate share of compute resources to develop is a tough business case to defend indefinitely. **Disclosure:** This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our [Editorial Policy](https://cryptobriefing.com/editorial-policy/).