Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) vs GPT-6 Luna (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) by Anthropic or GPT-6 Luna (Medium) by OpenAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) scores 11.9 points higher (41.8 vs 29.9) but costs 221× as much to run the benchmark ($6874 vs $31.2; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) when you need intelligence above 29.9, and GPT-6 Luna (Medium) when 29.9 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) | GPT-6 Luna (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.8 | 29.9 | −28.5% GPT-6 Luna (Medium) is 28.5% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,873.86 | $31.17 | −99.5% GPT-6 Luna (Medium) is 99.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 36.92s | 8.25s | −77.7% GPT-6 Luna (Medium) is 77.7% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.10 / $0.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
GPT-6 Luna (Medium) vs Claude Opus 4.8 (Max): 28.5% less intelligence, 99.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 77.7% 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.
- GPT-6 Luna (Medium) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
Claude Opus 4.8 (Max)GPT-6 Luna (Medium)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-6-luna-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/gpt-6-luna-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill