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Fast mode for Claude Opus 5.5 no longer needs an access request (at twice the standard price)

2026/10/18

On 15 October 2026 Anthropic took fast mode for Claude Opus 5.5 out of research preview⁠[1]. It no longer needs an access request or the fast-mode-2026-02-01 beta header⁠[1,2]. Requests that still send the header keep working⁠[1,2].

Fast mode runs the same model with a faster inference configuration, so intelligence and capabilities do not change⁠[2]. Output tokens per second rise by up to 2.5 times⁠[2]. The gain is mainly in that output speed, not in the time to the first token⁠[2].

It costs $8 input and $40 output per million tokens, exactly twice the standard Opus 5.5 rates of $4 and $20⁠[1,2]. The same multiplier applies to requests over 200K input tokens, and prompt caching and data residency multipliers apply on top of it⁠[2].

Fast mode for Opus 5 and Opus 4.8 remains in research preview and needs an access request and the beta header⁠[1,2]. It costs $10 input and $50 output⁠[2].

Fast mode for Opus 5.5 is available on the Claude API, including Claude Managed Agents, and on Microsoft Foundry deployments hosted on Azure⁠[1,2]. It is not available on Foundry deployments hosted on Anthropic⁠[2].

Fast mode has its own rate limit, separate from standard Opus limits, and Opus 5.5 has a default fast mode limit in the Start, Build and Scale usage tiers⁠[1,2]. Exceeding it returns a 429 error with a retry-after header⁠[2]. The SDK retries up to two times by default⁠[2].

The speed field in the response usage shows whether a request actually ran at fast or standard speed⁠[2].