Claude Fable 5.2 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.2 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, 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 (Medium, Default Fallb… scores 6.5 points higher (56.4 vs 49.9) but costs 1.2× as much to run the benchmark ($3360 vs $2903; both flagship class). Pick Claude Fable 5.2 (Medium, Default Fallb… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallb….
| Metric | Claude Fable 5.2 (Medium, Default Fallback) | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.4 | 49.9 | −11.5% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xh… is 11.5% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $3,359.66 | $2,902.50 | −13.6% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xh… is 13.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 27.53s | 42.84s | +55.6% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xh… is 55.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $8.00 / $40.0 | $2.00 / $10.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Claude Fable 5.2 (Medium, Default Fallback): 11.5% less intelligence, 13.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 55.6% slower end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Fable 5.2 (Medium, Default Fallback) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 54.60 for $1124.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-2-medium/claude-sonnet-5-5-xhigh · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-2-medium/claude-sonnet-5-5-xhigh?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill