Claude Code API pricing explained
What you pay Anthropic, and how much The Distillery saves you.
How Anthropic charges
Anthropic charges by token. Claude Sonnet (the default model for Claude Code) costs approximately €3 per million input tokens and €15 per million output tokens. Typical sessions are input-heavy, and most of your bill is context re-sent each turn.
The tiers below use a €3/M blended input-heavy rate. Your exact rate depends on model and output ratio.
Cost at 3 usage tiers
| Tier | Usage | Anthropic cost | After 40% reduction | You save |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Light dev | 2M tokens/mo | €6 | €3.60 | €2.40/mo |
| Regular dev | 20M tokens/mo | €60 | €36 | €24/mo |
| Heavy dev | 100M tokens/mo | €300 | €180 | €120/mo |
Free includes full token optimization at no cost. Pro adds attention-aware optimization, anomaly detection, cost forecasting, and cost attribution. See full pricing.
A note on the 30-60% range
Real world reduction is 30-60% depending on session patterns, and every figure here is reproducible via the benchmark. A standard session measures 40%; agentic sessions save 53%; monorepo work saves 74%. Your actual reduction depends on your workflow.
Run the benchmark yourself: see the numbers →