Cheaper Claude Code. Same Opus 5.5, same tool, 25% to 50% under Anthropic's price.
Point Claude Code at UplinkSwitch with two environment variables. It keeps its models, its commands and its cache; the per-token price changes.
Claude Code prices, per million tokens · Oct 22, 5:15 PM UTC
| Model | Input | Cache read | Output |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus 5.5claude-opus-5-5 | |||
| Claude Sonnet 5.5claude-sonnet-5-5 | |||
| Claude Haiku 5.5claude-haiku-5-5 | $0.01 |
Struck figures are Anthropic's published list price for the same model. Both columns come from the live catalog, GET /v1/catalog. Every Claude model on the key is on the Claude API pricing hub.
What one turn costs on Opus 5.5
The accounts that spend most here run Claude Code with 125,000 tokens of context on every call, almost all of it read back from the prompt cache. At $0.15 per cached million, that read is $0.0188 a turn. At Anthropic's $0.20 it is $0.025.
Add 2,000 fresh input tokens and 1,500 output tokens and the whole turn is $0.0394 here against $0.063 at list. The output rate is where the gap is widest: $10.00 per million against $20.00.
Per-token prices are the same at any volume; top-ups from $200 earn bonus credit. Each top-up locks your prices for 30 days, so a price change in the catalog never raises a bill mid-month.
- Opus 5.5
- Here
- Anthropic
- Cache read, one turn
- $0.0188
$0.025- Whole turn
- $0.0394
$0.063- 200-turn day
- $7.87
$12.60- 20 working days
- $157.40
$252.00
Two lines, then run claude
export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="https://api.uplinkswitch.com/v1"
export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN="sk-uplink-live-..."- The key comes from the console, with a balance loaded.
ANTHROPIC_API_KEYworks in place ofANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN; set one, not both. - Inside Claude Code,
/statusshows anAnthropic base URLline with the UplinkSwitch address. Theopus,sonnetandhaikualiases resolve to the 5.5 models as before. - To make it permanent, put the same two variables under
envin~/.claude/settings.json. The Claude Code setup guide covers the model variables, the VS Code extension, the MCP server and every error code.
The same model, checked every day
Once a day every model on the key gets the same prompt, and its token counts and fingerprint are published at /proof. Today's verdicts for the three Claude Code models:
- Claude Opus 5.5Same fingerprint since Oct 13
- Claude Sonnet 5.5Same fingerprint since Oct 12
- Claude Haiku 5.5Same fingerprint since Oct 19
Every response carries x-uplink-charge, the cost of that request in USD, and x-uplink-request-id. The receipt for any request is one call away and lists its cache reads:
curl https://api.uplinkswitch.com/v1/requests/REQUEST_ID \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN"Prepaid from $10, no subscription, a monthly spend limit per key, and a signed statement every month that anyone can check at /statements/verify.
Questions
- Is there a cheaper way to run Claude Code?
- Yes: keep Claude Code and change where it sends the request. With ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL set to https://api.uplinkswitch.com/v1 and an UplinkSwitch key, the same Claude Opus 5.5 bills at $2.80 in, $0.15 per cached million and $10.00 out, against $4.00, $0.20 and $20.00 on Anthropic's list. No plan, no model swap.
- Is this a Claude Code alternative?
- No. It is Claude Code itself, Anthropic's own tool, reading two environment variables it documents. The model is the same Claude Opus 5.5, Sonnet 5.5 or Haiku 5.5. Pages that promise a cheaper Claude Code by swapping in a different model are comparing tools, not prices.
- How do I reduce Claude Code cost without changing models?
- Most of a Claude Code turn is context read back from the prompt cache, so the cache-read rate matters more than the input rate. Here a cached million costs $0.15 on Opus 5.5. The cache lasts five minutes on an API key, so turns sent close together stay cheap; a turn after a longer break pays the input rate for the whole context once. Setting ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL moves background work such as session titles to Haiku 5.5.
- What is the cheapest Claude Code plan?
- On a key there is no plan. The smallest top-up is $10, and at today's Opus 5.5 price it buys about 254 turns of the shape above (125,000 cached tokens, 2,000 fresh in, 1,500 out). Anthropic's Pro, Max and Team plans, with their read dates, are in the Claude Code pricing post linked below.
- Does prompt caching work through UplinkSwitch?
- Yes. Claude Code marks the conversation for the cache on every turn, and tokens read from it bill at the cache-read rate in the table. Every response carries an x-uplink-request-id; GET /v1/requests/{id} returns input_tokens, cache_read_tokens, output_tokens and charge_usd for that request, so you can see the cache working on your own calls.
- Why does /usage in Claude Code show a higher cost?
- Claude Code estimates its own cost at Anthropic's list price and does not know what the key behind the base URL charges. The charge you pay is in the x-uplink-charge header of each response, on the console's Usage page and on the signed monthly statement.
Sign in, load a balance, export two variables.
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