OpenAI and Anthropic cut model prices amid pressure from Chinese rivals

Leading US AI labs OpenAI and Anthropic have cut prices on mid-tier models by up to 80% in response to competitive pressure from Chinese rivals. OpenAI said it reduced the price of GPT-5.6 Luna from $1 to $0.20 per million input tokens and from $6 to $1.20 per million output tokens. Anthropic launched Claude Opus 5 at $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output tokens—half the price of its Fable 5 model—and canceled a planned September price increase for Sonnet 5.

The reductions have contributed to a nearly 25% drop in average prices for models from leading US labs since mid-July, according to Silicon Data’s token price index. The index tracks the cost of input and output tokens, the units used to calculate many customers’ bills.

The price war reflects a shift from performance-based competition to cost competition as enterprise customers face rising AI infrastructure costs. Some companies have imposed usage caps or tested cheaper alternatives after bills increased under usage-based billing models introduced by Anthropic and OpenAI.

Chinese developers including Moonshot and DeepSeek have gained ground with open models that can be freely downloaded and modified, undercutting proprietary US offerings. Artificial Analysis found that Anthropic’s Opus 5 at medium effort delivered similar performance and cost per task to Moonshot’s Kimi K3 at max effort, while OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Luna at max effort performed similarly to DeepSeek’s V4 Flash at max effort but cost nearly twice as much per task.

The moves come as OpenAI and Anthropic prepare for potential public offerings at trillion-dollar valuations, with investors scrutinizing whether the industry’s heavy spending on AI can deliver returns. A person close to Anthropic said Opus 5’s pricing below Fable 5 was consistent with the company’s model family strategy and not a direct response to competitors.

Enterprise users such as DoorDash and Airbnb have started using Chinese-made models to manage costs, according to the report. Mantas Lukauskas, AI tech lead at Hostinger, said prices for top-tier models remain flat to rising and that the recent cuts are the first real test of whether US labs can protect the economics of their most advanced offerings.