Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallb… scores 9.6 points higher (51.9 vs 42.3) but costs 2.5× as much to run the benchmark ($2177 vs $860; flagship vs premium cost classes). Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallb… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback).
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 42.3 | 51.9 | +22.7% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xh… is 22.7% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $860.33 | $2,176.82 | +153.0% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xh… is 2.5× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 15.14s | 33.91s | +124.0% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xh… is 124.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $2.00 / $10.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback): 22.7% more intelligence, 153.0% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 124.0% slower end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- 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.
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-low/claude-sonnet-5-5-xhigh · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-low/claude-sonnet-5-5-xhigh?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill