Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)
Which is better for the money: Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) 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 2026-10-26.
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallb… scores 8.5 points higher (51.9 vs 43.4) but costs 6.6× as much to run the benchmark ($2177 vs $330; 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 43.4, and Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) when 43.4 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 43.4 | 51.9 | +19.6% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xh… is 19.6% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $330.25 | $2,176.82 | +559.1% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xh… is 6.6× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 354.68s | 34.96s | −90.1% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xh… is 90.1% faster |
| 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 (Max): 19.6% more intelligence, 559.1% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 90.1% 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 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/claude-sonnet-5-5-xhigh · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-haiku-5-5/claude-sonnet-5-5-xhigh?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill