Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) vs GPT-5.6 Luna (Max)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) by Anthropic or GPT-5.6 Luna (Max) by OpenAI? 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 4.8 (Max) scores 4.5 points higher (41.8 vs 37.3) but costs 21× as much to run the benchmark ($6874 vs $320; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) when you need intelligence above 37.3, and GPT-5.6 Luna (Max) when 37.3 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) | GPT-5.6 Luna (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.8 | 37.3 | −10.8% GPT-5.6 Luna (Max) is 10.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,873.86 | $319.93 | −95.3% GPT-5.6 Luna (Max) is 95.3% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 51.76s | 124.29s | +140.1% GPT-5.6 Luna (Max) is 140.1% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.20 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
GPT-5.6 Luna (Max) vs Claude Opus 4.8 (Max): 10.8% less intelligence, 95.3% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 140.1% slower 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.
- GPT-5.6 Luna (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Claude Opus 4.8 (Max)GPT-5.6 Luna (Max)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/gpt-5-6-luna · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/gpt-5-6-luna?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill