Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) vs GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026) by OpenAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-27.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 27.6 points higher (53.6 vs 26.0) but costs 2.2× as much to run the benchmark ($2172 vs $987; flagship vs premium cost classes). Pick Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026).
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) | GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 53.6 | 26.0 | −51.5% GPT-5.5 Instant (June… is 51.5% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,172.43 | $986.85 | −54.6% GPT-5.5 Instant (June… is 54.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 39.53s | 16.37s | −58.6% GPT-5.5 Instant (June… is 58.6% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $5.00 / $30.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback): 51.5% less intelligence, 54.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 58.6% faster end-to-end.
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.
- GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback)GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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