Sonnet 5.5 cache reads are now $0.10 per million tokens, half the launch price

The 2.1.296 entry says Claude Code's /cost, status line, --max-budget-usd and SDK cost figures now price Sonnet 5.5 cache reads at $0.10 per million tokens, and gives the old figure as $0.20. The 2.1.284 entry from September 28 listed the launch price as $2 per million input tokens, $10 output and $0.20 for cache reads. Anthropic's pricing page now shows $0.10 for cache hits and refreshes, with input and output unchanged. Neither page says when the new rate took effect or calls it a price cut, so the date of the change is unknown.

Why it matters: If your harness keeps a long context warm across many steps, the cache-read rate is the price-list line that governs that spend. It halved for Sonnet 5.5, so re-measure the per-run cost of your loops before you move work to a different model on price alone.