Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) vs Claude Opus 5 (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) by Anthropic or Claude Opus 5 (Medium) by Anthropic? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (Medium) scores 1.4 points higher (44.8 vs 43.4) but costs 8.3× as much to run the benchmark ($2732 vs $330; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Medium) 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 (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 43.4 | 44.8 | +3.2% Claude Opus 5 (Medium) is 3.2% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $330.25 | $2,731.91 | +727.2% Claude Opus 5 (Medium) is 8.3× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 318.47s | 12.85s | −96.0% Claude Opus 5 (Medium) is 96.0% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.10 / $0.50 | $5.00 / $25.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Opus 5 (Medium) vs Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max): 3.2% more intelligence, 727.2% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 96.0% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
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 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max)Claude Opus 5 (Medium)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-haiku-5-5/claude-opus-5-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-haiku-5-5/claude-opus-5-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill