Anthropic shipped Sonnet 5.5 on September 28, 2026 — same $2/$10 as Sonnet 5, same 1M context, 30%+ faster, up to 30% cheaper per task, and on GDPval-AA it sits two Elo points under Opus 5.5. Five jobs Sonnet 5.5 already replaced in its first day on real marketing work, three where Opus 5.5 or Sonnet 5 still wins, and the routing principle that matters now that the Sonnet tier can carry real marketing work.
Anthropic shipped Opus 5.5 on September 22, 2026 — same 1M context as [Opus 5](/posts/claude-opus-5-marketers/) and [Fable 5.1](/posts/claude-fable-5-1-marketers/), but $4/$20 instead of $5/$25, cache reads cut 60% to $0.20, and a writing-style fix that actually lands. The number that matters for marketers isn't a benchmark — it's that 60% cache-read cut. Four jobs Opus 5.5 earns from Opus 5 this week, three where Fable 5.1 or Opus 5 still wins, one routing principle that holds, and the four breaking API changes you need to patch before Monday.
OpenAI shipped GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna on September 22, 2026 — three weeks after GPT-6 Astra, at half the per-token price of GPT-5.6 Sol and Luna. Sol ($2/$10) is the workhorse, Luna ($0.10/$0.50) is the budget engine, and Terra is gone. Five jobs to give Sol, three to keep on Astra or peers, and the routing principle that falls out once you stop chasing the flagship.
Anthropic's Fable 5.1 shipped September 1 with the same $10/$50 sticker as GPT-6 Astra but a 75% cache-read cut and flat pricing across the full 1M window. That changes which agent loops become viable: persistent brand-context documents can stay open across hundreds of turns. Four jobs to give it, two to keep on Opus 5, and three API breaking changes marketers need to patch this week.
GPT-6 "Astra" landed September 3 at $10/$50 per 1M tokens with 1.05M context and 0% out-of-scope safety hits. The headline is Computer Use — a model that clicks through HubSpot, builds spreadsheets, and pulls competitor PDFs into structured tables. Five jobs worth routing to it, three to keep on Sol or Opus 5, and the routing principle that fits both.
