Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) vs Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) by Anthropic or Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) by Anthropic? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) scores 6.3 points higher (49.7 vs 43.4) but costs 18× as much to run the benchmark ($5868 vs $330; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) 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 (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 43.4 | 49.7 | +14.5% Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) is 14.5% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $330.25 | $5,867.76 | +1676.8% Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) is 18× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 327.94s | 40.42s | −87.7% Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) is 87.7% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.10 / $0.50 | $5.00 / $25.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) vs Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max): 14.5% more intelligence, 1676.8% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 87.7% 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 (Xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max)Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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