Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs Claude Fable 5.2 (High, Default Fallback)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Claude Fable 5.2 (High, Default Fallback) by Anthropic? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-11-10.
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5.2 (High, Default Fallbac… scores 18.6 points higher (61.8 vs 43.2) but costs 1.5× as much to run the benchmark ($7106 vs $4897; both flagship class). Pick Claude Fable 5.2 (High, Default Fallbac… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallb….
| Metric | Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) | Claude Fable 5.2 (High, Default Fallback) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 43.2 | 61.8 | +43.1% Claude Fable 5.2 (Hig… is 43.1% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,896.58 | $7,105.77 | +45.1% Claude Fable 5.2 (Hig… is 45.1% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 13.45s | 36.05s | +168.0% Claude Fable 5.2 (Hig… is 168.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $8.00 / $40.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Fable 5.2 (High, Default Fallback) vs Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback): 43.1% more intelligence, 45.1% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 168.0% slower end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 57.40 for $4766.
- Claude Fable 5.2 (High, Default Fallback) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-medium/claude-fable-5-2-high · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-medium/claude-fable-5-2-high?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill