Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) vs GPT-5.6 Luna (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) by Anthropic or GPT-5.6 Luna (Xhigh) by OpenAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick GPT-5.6 Luna (Xhigh)
GPT-5.6 Luna (Xhigh) vs Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning): 67.1% more intelligence, 88.1% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 110.9% slower end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) | GPT-5.6 Luna (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 20.7 | 34.6 | +67.1% GPT-5.6 Luna (Xhigh) is 67.1% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,501.22 | $179.33 | −88.1% GPT-5.6 Luna (Xhigh) is 88.1% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 21.72s | 45.80s | +110.9% GPT-5.6 Luna (Xhigh) is 110.9% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $3.00 / $15.0 | $0.20 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- GPT-5.6 Luna (Xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Terra (Medium) scores 41.30 for $175.
Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning)GPT-5.6 Luna (Xhigh)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-4-5-sonnet-thinking/gpt-5-6-luna-xhigh · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-4-5-sonnet-thinking/gpt-5-6-luna-xhigh?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill