Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) 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.
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 11.3 points higher (53.6 vs 42.3) but costs 2.5× as much to run the benchmark ($2172 vs $860; flagship vs premium cost classes). Pick Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback).
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) | Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 53.6 | 42.3 | −21.1% Claude Opus 5.5 (Low,… is 21.1% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,172.43 | $860.33 | −60.4% Claude Opus 5.5 (Low,… is 60.4% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 33.81s | 13.42s | −60.3% Claude Opus 5.5 (Low,… is 60.3% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $4.00 / $20.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback): 21.1% less intelligence, 60.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 60.3% faster end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- 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.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-high/claude-opus-5-5-low · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-high/claude-opus-5-5-low?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill