Anthropic extended free access to its advanced model, Fable, for paid subscribers until July 19, a move analysts say is a last-minute grab for users, data and model evaluation results, not generosity. After the free period, Fable will convert to a pay-per-use model at $10 per million input tokens and $50 for 1 million output tokens, double the price of its next most advanced model, Opus 4.8. Anthropic’s team stated in a July 12 tweet: “We’re extending Claude Fable 5 access on all paid plans, as well as keeping Claude Code’s weekly rate limits 50% higher, through July 19.” Analyst Sanchit Vir Gogia said Anthropic keeps extending Fable because it does not yet know what its flagship is worth, noting, “A vendor confident in its price does not move the same cutoff twice in six days, both times at the wire.” Fable was launched June 9, but on June 12 the US government put export controls on it after Amazon researchers bypassed safeguards; it was relaunched July 1 after controls were lifted. The extension follows OpenAI’s ChatGPT 5.6 Sol, which became generally available July 9 at $5 per one million tokens input and $30 for 1 million output tokens. Analysts noted both companies are competing aggressively to build market share ahead of going public.