Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5.2 and Mythos 5.0 Are Impressive, But Be Prepared to Sell a Kidney to Afford Them

Anthropic launched Claude Fable 5.2 and Mythos 5.2 on Monday, promising AI fashions that may flip a handful of directions into working software program, design bodily objects, and deal with analysis issues that beforehand required groups of specialists.

Now you can ask a chatbot to construct the app you’ve got at all times wished. You might also have to promote a kidney to pay for it.

That is not as a result of each immediate prices 1000’s of {dollars}. It is as a result of Fable can preserve working for days, writing code, testing it, and fixing its personal errors whereas the meter retains operating.

Some customers have already examined its capabilities, and so they’ve been impressed—by the facility, and the worth.

AI YouTuber Matthew Berman put the mannequin by a collection of formidable assessments and described Fable 5.2 because the “finest AI mannequin” he is ever used. His tasks included playable video video games and a browser-based model of Microsoft Excel, full with formulation and pivot tables.

One single degree of Gears of Struggle: E-Day-inspired degree took 43 hours and 48 minutes of construct time and processed 8.63 billion tokens—small chunks of data an AI reads and produces. The operating API value estimate, based mostly on pay-as-you-go pricing for builders, had reached $14,710.

The Excel clone ran up an estimated $11,700 after reductions for cached inputs, or info the system can reuse as a substitute of processing from scratch. Berman additionally confirmed a Fall Guys-style recreation that consumed greater than 9 billion tokens over 71 hours, equal to roughly $13,000.

These are estimated API prices, and the tasks weren’t flawless: Berman reported awkward animations, bugs, and options that also wanted testing.

A $37 tower and a $15,000 online game

If you happen to’re poor, nicely… Fable additionally is aware of tips on how to work for reasonable. For lower than $40 (two months of Claude Professional) it constructed a cute orange cylinder.

One other experiment simulated water-balloon physics for $91. It’s value noting this isn’t a mannequin supposed for routine duties. That is for severe work and folks with deep pockets.

In its launch announcement, Anthropic stated the brand new fashions generate output as much as 30% quicker than their predecessors. The corporate additionally says Fable helped resolve two open theoretical-physics issues involving black holes and design three functioning digital units, claims that can want impartial scrutiny.

Anthropic’s inside FrontierCode 2.0 analysis, which measures the proportion of proposed coding adjustments that will be accepted into actual open-source tasks, put Fable 5.2 at 49.1%, in contrast with 32.4% for Fable 5.1. That helps clarify why customers are pushing it past easy chat responses.

Fable and Mythos share the identical underlying mannequin, however Fable has stricter safeguards round harmful organic and cybersecurity requests. Mythos is reserved for verified organizations working in these fields.

The usual API worth is $8 per million enter tokens and $40 per million output tokens, down from the earlier era’s $10 and $50. Non-compulsory quick mode can generate output as much as 2.5 occasions quicker, however doubles the charges to $16 and $80.

For distinction, Kimi 3.1 Professional, a mannequin thought-about by many as one of the best Chinese language AI mannequin prices $2 per million enter tokens and $10 per million output tokens. The most recent Deepseek mannequin prices $0.6 and $1.98 exterior of peak hours.

Per Anthropic’s requirements, Fable’s worth remains to be twice the per-token worth of Claude Opus 5.5, which Anthropic recommends for on a regular basis work. Its flagship is supposed for issues the cheaper fashions wrestle to complete, not for asking whether or not your electronic mail sounds too aggressive.

The price debate has historical past. When Fable 5 was launched, it burned by some subscribers’ quotas in minutes. When Fable 5.1 arrived in September, Anthropic stored premium pricing whereas enhancing reductions for reused inputs.

Simply final week, hypothesis swirled round a supposed Fable 5.5. The precise launch is 5.2, with cheaper token charges however sufficient urge for food to show a passion venture right into a severe expense.

For atypical subscribers, Anthropic’s launch supply provides Professional customers and commonplace Crew seats Fable entry for one week, capped at half their weekly allowance, plus a reset. Max, Extremely and eligible premium seats get one to a few resets relying on subscription historical past.

Professional customers’ promotional entry ends November 16, after which Fable returns to paid credit on their plans. Resets for eligible Max and Extremely subscribers final till March 8, 2027. Berman’s $14,710 recreation affords a reasonably convincing cause to verify the meter.

Anthropic, final we checked, doesn’t settle for kidneys as a way of fee.