Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback)
Which is better for the money: Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) by Anthropic or Claude Opus 5.5 (High, 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 (High, Default Fallback) scores 10.2 points higher (53.6 vs 43.4) but costs 6.6× as much to run the benchmark ($2172 vs $330; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) when you need intelligence above 43.4, and Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) when 43.4 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) | Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 43.4 | 53.6 | +23.5% Claude Opus 5.5 (High… is 23.5% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $330.25 | $2,172.43 | +557.8% Claude Opus 5.5 (High… is 6.6× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 347.67s | 39.33s | −88.7% Claude Opus 5.5 (High… is 88.7% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.10 / $0.50 | $4.00 / $20.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) vs Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max): 23.5% more intelligence, 557.8% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 88.7% faster end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
- Claude Opus 5.5 (High, 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/claude-opus-5-5-high · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-haiku-5-5/claude-opus-5-5-high?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill