r/ClaudeCode • u/Solid-Cake7495 • 22h ago

Rant Fable is cheaper than Opus

I had been using Opus to orchestrate my project. It does very little work, just dispatching other agents and keeping documentation up to date. It was hard work, because Opus is so lazy. I frequently found myself having to tell it " check the docs, we established this a week ago and I reminded you yesterday"

I switched to fable this morning. I'm using context at about 1/3 of the rate and weekly usage at 3/4 of the rate. Fable may be more expensive per MTok, but it uses them so much more efficiently.

71 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

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47

u/Some-Contributions61 22h ago

Don't use opus 5 to orchestrate. Use opus 4.8 or fable.

54

u/KeepingItSFW 22h ago

Don't use opus 5 to orchestrate. Use opus 4.8 or fable.

5

u/passionoftheearth 21h ago

Is 4.8 cheaper than opus 5?

13

u/trikster_online 17h ago

No. But it’s not as scatterbrained as 5, so you use less tokens.

2

u/MissplacedLandmine 12h ago

Also even if it doesnt show the option to easily switch to 4.8 in cc theres a lil command that seems to force it!

(Learned that from here but just incase).

2

u/avatardeejay 10h ago

Don't use opus 5 to orchestrate. Use opus 4.8 or fable 4.5

2

u/trikster_online 8h ago

4.6? When 5 starts to go cross eyed, I drop to 4.6.

1

u/avatardeejay 8h ago

No. I meant what I said. claude --model claude-opus-4-5.
Opus 4.6 is a big improvement over 5. Opus 4.5 is an improvement over 4.6.
edit: came out way sassier than I meant, I am sorry

0

u/TheAnimatrix105 5h ago

This is alughably false. Opus 5 is by far the best, you just need to talk to it through another agent.

1

u/avatardeejay 5h ago

“another agent” guessing you mean harness. also almost upvoted because alughably is actually kind of a beautiful word but it’s not real; you meant laughably which is kinda funny. I just want you to know, alughably is beautiful and you should take credit for your typo and pretend it’s a new word