Anthropic has launched a new feature called "fast mode" for its Claude Opus 4.6 model, significantly increasing response speed. Users can access this faster version by typing /fast in Claude Code, but it comes at a steep price—six times the standard rate. Normally, Claude Opus costs $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output tokens. With fast mode, those rates jump to $30 and $150, respectively. There's a temporary 50% discount until February 16th, lowering the cost to a 3x multiplier. The exact speed increase isn't detailed in the documentation, but Claude's team claims the fast mode operates at 2.5 times the speed of the earlier model, Claude Opus 4.5. This previous version supported a context limit of 200,000 tokens, while the latest upgrade allows for 1,000,000 tokens at increased pricing—$10 per million input and $37.50 per million output once the initial limit is surpassed. After the discount period, fast mode pricing will rise further to $60 for input and $225 for output, making it a costly option for those needing rapid processing capabilities.