Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) vs Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) by Google? 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 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 13.8 points higher (53.6 vs 39.8) but costs 2.0× as much to run the benchmark ($2172 vs $1100; flagship vs premium cost classes). Pick Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium).
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) | Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 53.6 | 39.8 | −25.7% Gemini 3.8 Flash (Med… is 25.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,172.43 | $1,100.06 | −49.4% Gemini 3.8 Flash (Med… is 49.4% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 33.81s | Not reported | — not comparable |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.75 / $3.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback): 25.7% less intelligence, 49.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and end-to-end time not fully reported.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback)Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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