Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, 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 Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallbac… scores 7.1 points higher (56.0 vs 48.9) but costs 1.8× as much to run the benchmark ($7260 vs $3983; both flagship class). Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, 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 Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 48.9 | 56.0 | +14.5% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Ma… is 14.5% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $3,983.28 | $7,259.50 | +82.2% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Ma… is 82.2% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 16.07s | 409.04s | +2445.4% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Ma… is 2445.4% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $2.00 / $10.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback): 14.5% more intelligence, 82.2% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 2445.4% slower end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- 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.
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-medium/claude-sonnet-5-5 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-medium/claude-sonnet-5-5?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill