Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 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 2026-10-25.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback)
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback): 12.9% more intelligence, 35.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 351.8% slower end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 49.6 | 56.0 | +12.9% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Ma… is 12.9% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $11,160.86 | $7,259.50 | −35.0% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Ma… is 35.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 85.37s | 385.69s | +351.8% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Ma… is 351.8% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $2.00 / $10.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Today's Pareto frontier
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 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.
Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback)Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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