Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback)
Which is better for the money: Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) by Anthropic or Claude Opus 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 Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 19.8 points higher (57.6 vs 37.8) but costs 93× as much to run the benchmark ($8708 vs $94.1; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) when you need intelligence above 37.8, and Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) when 37.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) | Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 37.8 | 57.6 | +52.4% Claude Opus 5.5 (Max,… is 52.4% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $94.07 | $8,708.20 | +9157.1% Claude Opus 5.5 (Max,… is 93× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 29.02s | 711.14s | +2350.5% Claude Opus 5.5 (Max,… is 2350.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.10 / $0.50 | $4.00 / $20.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Claude Haiku 5.5 (High): 52.4% more intelligence, 9157.1% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 2350.5% slower end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, 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-haiku-5-5-high/claude-opus-5-5 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-haiku-5-5-high/claude-opus-5-5?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill