Claude Fable 5.1 (High, Default Fallback) vs Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.1 (High, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5.1 (High, Default Fallbac… scores 2.3 points higher (51.2 vs 48.9) but costs 1.3× as much to run the benchmark ($5242 vs $3983; both flagship class). Pick Claude Fable 5.1 (High, Default Fallbac… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallb….
| Metric | Claude Fable 5.1 (High, Default Fallback) | Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 51.2 | 48.9 | −4.5% Claude Fable 5.1 (Med… is 4.5% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $5,241.59 | $3,983.28 | −24.0% Claude Fable 5.1 (Med… is 24.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 28.41s | 22.52s | −20.7% Claude Fable 5.1 (Med… is 20.7% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $10.0 / $50.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs Claude Fable 5.1 (High, Default Fallback): 4.5% less intelligence, 24.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 20.7% faster end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Fable 5.1 (High, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-high/claude-fable-5-1-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-high/claude-fable-5-1-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill