OpenAI and Anthropic slash AI model fees as Chinese rivals lure customers

OpenAI and Anthropic announced steep reductions in the cost of accessing their language-model offerings, targeting budget-conscious corporate users. OpenAI’s fastest, low-cost model, GPT-5.6 Luna, now costs $0.20 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens, an 80% cut from previous rates. Anthropic launched Claude Opus 5 at $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output tokens, exactly half the price of its former premium tier, and scrapped a planned increase for its Sonnet 5 model.

The moves come as Chinese developers like DeepSeek and Moonshot attract major accounts by providing cheaper, open-weight models, prompting companies such as Airbnb and DoorDash to experiment with them. Both U.S. firms are transitioning enterprise customers from flat-rate subscriptions to usage-based billing while gearing up for IPOs valued in the trillions. The price war reflects mounting pressure from soaring infrastructure expenses and the need to demonstrate a clear path to profitability.