Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 4.8 (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 2026-10-24.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback)
Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) vs Claude Opus 4.8 (Max): 28.2% more intelligence, 68.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 8.4% faster end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) | Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.8 | 53.6 | +28.2% Claude Opus 5.5 (High… is 28.2% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,873.86 | $2,172.43 | −68.4% Claude Opus 5.5 (High… is 68.4% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 36.92s | 33.81s | −8.4% Claude Opus 5.5 (High… is 8.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $4.00 / $20.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
Claude Opus 4.8 (Max)Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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