If they have a really good model, it makes sense to subsidise it, to gain users, before they align prices with competitors.
I really dont see how anyone's willing spend more than $1.50 per mm output. Let alone $15-50. Does anyone actually pay for usage based billing as a consumer?
https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing
Model Base Input Tokens 5m Cache Writes 1h Cache Writes Cache Hits & Refreshes Output Tokens
Claude Fable 5 $10 / MTok $12.50 / MTok $20 / MTok $1 / MTok $50 / MTok
Claude Opus 4.8 $5 / MTok $6.25 / MTok $10 / MTok $0.50 / MTok $25 / MTok
Note Fable costs $50 MTok and Opus 4.8 costs $25 / MTok.