Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) vs Claude Opus 5 (Low)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) by Anthropic or Claude Opus 5 (Low) 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 4.8 (Max) scores 2.4 points higher (41.8 vs 39.4) but costs 4.4× as much to run the benchmark ($6874 vs $1561; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) when you need intelligence above 39.4, and Claude Opus 5 (Low) when 39.4 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) | Claude Opus 5 (Low) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.8 | 39.4 | −5.7% Claude Opus 5 (Low) is 5.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,873.86 | $1,560.91 | −77.3% Claude Opus 5 (Low) is 77.3% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 37.99s | 11.37s | −70.1% Claude Opus 5 (Low) is 70.1% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $5.00 / $25.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Opus 5 (Low) vs Claude Opus 4.8 (Max): 5.7% less intelligence, 77.3% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 70.1% faster end-to-end.
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 (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Opus 4.8 (Max)Claude Opus 5 (Low)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-low · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/claude-opus-5-low?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill