Opus 5 vs Fable 5: Cost per Task in Cursor Benchmarks

Melvin Vivas · X post · 2026-07-25 · Open on X

Topics: LLM Fundamentals, LLMOps, Deployment & Monitoring · Level: intermediate

Summary

Based on Cursor benchmarks, the creator says Claude Opus 5 costs about 50% less than Fable 5, uses fewer tokens per task and has a lower cost per task. He concludes that Fable 5 is no longer needed.

Key points

• Opus 5 is said to be about 50% cheaper than Fable 5.
• Opus 5 uses fewer tokens per task.
• Comparing cost per task is more useful than comparing price per token.
• The data comes from Cursor's benchmarks.
• Takeaway: re-check which model you use when a cheaper, more efficient one comes out.

Resources mentioned

• Claude Opus 5.5 · tool · claude.ai · paid · open in a browser to verify · recommended by both Bashiri Smith & Melvin Vivas
  Anthropic's AI assistant, used throughout the guide to tailor resumes, add live roles to the tracker, match connections to target companies and find hiring managers.
  Also in: Generating a Repo Promo Video with a Claude Skill on Sonnet 5.5 vs Opus 5.5 (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Comparing Coding Models on the Same Task in Devin iOS (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Customizing Your Coding Setup with Pi Coding Agent Extensions (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), AI Engineer Roadmap Overview: From ML Foundations to RAG, Agents & Ops (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) and 53 more
• Fable 5 · tool · anthropic.com · paid
  A frontier model used as the comparison point in the Claude Opus 5 announcement; the post gives no other details about it.
  Also in: Claude Opus 5.5 in Devin: #1 on FrontierCode 1.1 (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Creator's Top 3 Closed Models: Fable 5, GPT 5.6 Sol, Grok 4.6 (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Opus 5 Beats Fable 5 on Cost per Task and Tokens (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Claude Opus 5 Release: Anthropic's New Model Announced (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) and 7 more
• Cursor · tool · x.com · free · recommended by both Bashiri Smith & Melvin Vivas
  AI-native code editor (VS Code with AI built in).
  Also in: GLM 5.3 and GLM 5.3 Flash now in Cursor (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Grok Bot Can Now Hand Off Coding Tasks to Cursor (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Why Plan Mode Still Matters in AI Coding Assistants (Codex, Claude, Cursor) (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Why Plan Mode Still Matters in AI Coding Agents (Codex, Claude, Cursor) (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) and 121 more

Try this

• Compare models on cost per task and tokens per task, not only price per token.