Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) by Anthropic or Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, 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 (Low, Default Fallback)
Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) vs Claude Opus 4.8 (Max): 1.2% more intelligence, 87.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 63.7% faster end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) | Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.8 | 42.3 | +1.2% Claude Opus 5.5 (Low,… is 1.2% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,873.86 | $860.33 | −87.5% Claude Opus 5.5 (Low,… is 87.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 36.92s | 13.42s | −63.7% Claude Opus 5.5 (Low,… is 63.7% 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 (Low, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Claude Opus 4.8 (Max)Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/claude-opus-5-5-low · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/claude-opus-5-5-low?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill