Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) vs Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) by Anthropic or Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium) by Anthropic? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) scores 15.1 points higher (49.6 vs 34.5) but costs 198× as much to run the benchmark ($11161 vs $56.4; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) when you need intelligence above 34.5, and Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium) when 34.5 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) | Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 49.6 | 34.5 | −30.4% Claude Haiku 5.5 (Med… is 30.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $11,160.86 | $56.36 | −99.5% Claude Haiku 5.5 (Med… is 99.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 71.92s | 10.41s | −85.5% Claude Haiku 5.5 (Med… is 85.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $0.10 / $0.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium) vs Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback): 30.4% less intelligence, 99.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 85.5% faster end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 57.60 for $8708.
- Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium) 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/claude-haiku-5-5-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5/claude-haiku-5-5-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill