# Anthropic vs Fireworks AI

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/anthropic-vs-fireworks/

Every value below is read from Anthropic's and Fireworks AI's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | Anthropic | Fireworks AI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Pricing model | Per million tokens, priced separately for input and output and per model, with multipliers stacked on top: prompt caching, a 50% batch discount, a 1.1x uplift for US-only inference on Claude 4.6 and later, and a fast-mode premium. | Three products on one bill. Serverless inference is per token, per model. Fine-tuning is per million TRAINING tokens by parameter band — $0.50 for models up to 16B, $10.00 above 300B. Dedicated GPUs are hourly: $7.00 for an H100 or H200, $10.00 for a B200. |
| Input price, top model | $10 per million input tokens for Claude Fable 5.1, the most capable model. Claude Opus 5 is $5 and Claude Sonnet 5 is $2. | $3.00 per million input tokens for Kimi K3, the most expensive model in its serverless catalogue. Fireworks hosts other labs' open-weight models rather than its own, so "flagship" here means the top of what it serves. |
| Output price, top model | $50 per million output tokens for Claude Fable 5.1. Claude Opus 5 is $25 and Claude Sonnet 5 is $10. | $15.00 per million output tokens for Kimi K3. |
| Input price, cheapest model | $1 per million input tokens for Claude Haiku 4.5, the cheapest current model, with output at $5. | $0.15 per million input tokens for GLM 5.3 Flash, with output at $0.50. DeepSeek-V4-Flash is $0.22 in and $0.66 out — the same model DeepSeek itself sells at $0.44 peak. |
| Context window | 1M tokens on Claude Fable 5.1, Claude Opus 5 and Claude Sonnet 5; 200K on Claude Haiku 4.5. Anthropic states the full 1M window is billed at standard per-token rates. | 1,048,576 tokens on Kimi K3, GLM 5.3 and both DeepSeek V4 variants; 262,144 on Qwen3.8 and 131,072 on Muse Glimmer 30B. The window is the model's, not Fireworks'. |
| Max output tokens | 128K tokens on the top three models, 64K on Claude Haiku 4.5. The Batch API supports up to 300K output tokens on several models behind a beta header. | No separate output cap. max_tokens is bounded by the model's context length — prompt plus completion must fit inside it — and what happens on overflow is set by context_length_exceeded_behavior rather than a fixed ceiling. |
| Prompt caching | Supported | Supported |

## Where they differ

### Pricing model

- Anthropic: Per million tokens, priced separately for input and output and per model, with multipliers stacked on top: prompt caching, a 50% batch discount, a 1.1x uplift for US-only inference on Claude 4.6 and later, and a fast-mode premium. ([source](https://docs.claude.com/en/docs/about-claude/pricing))
- Fireworks AI: Three products on one bill. Serverless inference is per token, per model. Fine-tuning is per million TRAINING tokens by parameter band — $0.50 for models up to 16B, $10.00 above 300B. Dedicated GPUs are hourly: $7.00 for an H100 or H200, $10.00 for a B200. ([source](https://fireworks.ai/pricing))

### Input price, top model

- Anthropic: $10 per million input tokens for Claude Fable 5.1, the most capable model. Claude Opus 5 is $5 and Claude Sonnet 5 is $2. ([source](https://docs.claude.com/en/docs/about-claude/pricing))
- Fireworks AI: $3.00 per million input tokens for Kimi K3, the most expensive model in its serverless catalogue. Fireworks hosts other labs' open-weight models rather than its own, so "flagship" here means the top of what it serves. ([source](https://fireworks.ai/models))

### Output price, top model

- Anthropic: $50 per million output tokens for Claude Fable 5.1. Claude Opus 5 is $25 and Claude Sonnet 5 is $10. ([source](https://docs.claude.com/en/docs/about-claude/pricing))
- Fireworks AI: $15.00 per million output tokens for Kimi K3. ([source](https://fireworks.ai/models))

### Input price, cheapest model

- Anthropic: $1 per million input tokens for Claude Haiku 4.5, the cheapest current model, with output at $5. ([source](https://docs.claude.com/en/docs/about-claude/pricing))
- Fireworks AI: $0.15 per million input tokens for GLM 5.3 Flash, with output at $0.50. DeepSeek-V4-Flash is $0.22 in and $0.66 out — the same model DeepSeek itself sells at $0.44 peak. ([source](https://fireworks.ai/models))

### Context window

- Anthropic: 1M tokens on Claude Fable 5.1, Claude Opus 5 and Claude Sonnet 5; 200K on Claude Haiku 4.5. Anthropic states the full 1M window is billed at standard per-token rates. ([source](https://docs.claude.com/en/docs/about-claude/models/overview))
- Fireworks AI: 1,048,576 tokens on Kimi K3, GLM 5.3 and both DeepSeek V4 variants; 262,144 on Qwen3.8 and 131,072 on Muse Glimmer 30B. The window is the model's, not Fireworks'. ([source](https://fireworks.ai/models))

### Max output tokens

- Anthropic: 128K tokens on the top three models, 64K on Claude Haiku 4.5. The Batch API supports up to 300K output tokens on several models behind a beta header. ([source](https://docs.claude.com/en/docs/about-claude/models/overview))
- Fireworks AI: No separate output cap. max_tokens is bounded by the model's context length — prompt plus completion must fit inside it — and what happens on overflow is set by context_length_exceeded_behavior rather than a fixed ceiling. ([source](https://fireworks.ai/docs/api-reference/post-chatcompletions))

## Which should you choose?

Pick Anthropic if Teams that want the full 1M-token window at the standard per-token rate rather than a long-context surcharge, and that can use caching and batch to cut a frontier-model bill roughly in half.

Pick Fireworks AI if Running open-weight models without operating GPUs — the same DeepSeek and Qwen checkpoints the labs publish, served per token, with a path to dedicated hardware if throughput demands it.

Consider something else: Anthropic — Its cheapest model is $1 per million input tokens, several times what the budget tiers at Google, OpenAI and DeepSeek charge, so high-volume simple work is priced against you.

Consider something else: Fireworks AI — You want a frontier proprietary model: Fireworks serves other people's open weights, so the ceiling is whatever the open ecosystem has released.

## Documented by only one

- Free tier: Fireworks AI: Yes
- Batch discount: Anthropic: 50% off both input and output tokens through the Batch API, for asynchronous processing.
- H100 SXM, per GPU-hour: Fireworks AI: $7.00 per hour for an H100 80GB on demand, or $8.00 on the shorter commitment shown beside it. The same rate applies to an H200 141GB.
- Largest GPU offered: Fireworks AI: 180GB per GPU on a B200, at $10.00 an hour on demand.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Should I choose Anthropic or Fireworks AI?**

Pick Anthropic if Teams that want the full 1M-token window at the standard per-token rate rather than a long-context surcharge, and that can use caching and batch to cut a frontier-model bill roughly in half.
Pick Fireworks AI if Running open-weight models without operating GPUs — the same DeepSeek and Qwen checkpoints the labs publish, served per token, with a path to dedicated hardware if throughput demands it.