Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)
Which is better for the money: Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) 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 2026-10-27.
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallb… scores 14.1 points higher (51.9 vs 37.8) but costs 23× as much to run the benchmark ($2177 vs $94.1; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallb… 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 Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 37.8 | 51.9 | +37.3% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xh… is 37.3% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $94.07 | $2,176.82 | +2214.0% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xh… is 23× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 28.44s | 34.85s | +22.5% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xh… is 22.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.10 / $0.50 | $2.00 / $10.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Claude Haiku 5.5 (High): 37.3% more intelligence, 2214.0% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 22.5% slower end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-haiku-5-5-high/claude-sonnet-5-5-xhigh · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-haiku-5-5-high/claude-sonnet-5-5-xhigh?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill