Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) vs GPT-5 mini (High)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or GPT-5 mini (High) by OpenAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) scores 25.5 points higher (42.3 vs 16.8) but costs 4.6× as much to run the benchmark ($860 vs $189; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) when you need intelligence above 16.8, and GPT-5 mini (High) when 16.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) | GPT-5 mini (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 42.3 | 16.8 | −60.3% GPT-5 mini (High) is 60.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $860.33 | $188.66 | −78.1% GPT-5 mini (High) is 78.1% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 12.48s | 60.90s | +388.0% GPT-5 mini (High) is 388.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.25 / $2.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
GPT-5 mini (High) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback): 60.3% less intelligence, 78.1% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 388.0% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
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.
- GPT-5 mini (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh) scores 41.20 for $158.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback)GPT-5 mini (High)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-low/gpt-5-mini · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-low/gpt-5-mini?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill