Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback)

Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) by Anthropic? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.

Trade-off
AnthropicClaude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback)Off the frontier
Intelligence
51.20
Total cost
$1627
AnthropicClaude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback)Off the frontier
Intelligence
35.90
Total cost
$482
Verdict

Depends on your budget

Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallba… scores 15.3 points higher (51.2 vs 35.9) but costs 3.4× as much to run the benchmark ($1627 vs $482; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallba… when you need intelligence above 35.9, and Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallbac… when 35.9 is enough.

MetricClaude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback)Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback)Difference
Intelligence (higher is better)51.235.9−29.9% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Lo… is 29.9% less intelligent
Total AA cost (lower is better)$1,626.81$482.13−70.4% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Lo… is 70.4% cheaper
End-to-end time (lower is better)21.78s5.91s−72.9% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Lo… is 72.9% faster
Price per 1M tokens (in / out)$4.00 / $20.0$2.00 / $10.0
Input modalitiesText, ImageText, Image

Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback): 29.9% less intelligence, 70.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 72.9% faster end-to-end.

Open this matchup in the interactive pickerClaude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback): what beats itClaude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback): what beats it
Today's Pareto frontier

Against the frontier

0204060$10$20$50$100$200$500$1k$2k$5k$10k$20kCost to run the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (USD, log scale)Intelligence IndexApodex 1.1 (Apodex): intelligence 26.40, $939Beam 1.0 (Reflection): intelligence 30.30, $319Celeris-1 (Celeris): intelligence 6.30, $60.0Claude 4.5 Haiku (Reasoning) (Anthropic): intelligence 16.90, $594Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) (Anthropic): intelligence 20.70, $1501Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 49.60, $11161Claude Fable 5.1 (High, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 51.20, $5242Claude Fable 5.1 (Low, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 46.80, $3158Claude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 53.40, $13129Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 48.90, $3983Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 53.20, $9063Claude Haiku 5.5 (Low) (Anthropic): intelligence 29.50, $34.3Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) (Anthropic): intelligence 43.40, $330Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) (Anthropic): intelligence 41.80, $6874Claude Opus 5 (High) (Anthropic): intelligence 48.10, $4332Claude Opus 5 (Low) (Anthropic): intelligence 39.40, $1561Claude Opus 5 (Max) (Anthropic): intelligence 50.80, $7275Claude Opus 5 (Medium) (Anthropic): intelligence 44.80, $2732Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) (Anthropic): intelligence 49.70, $5868Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 42.30, $860Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) (Anthropic): intelligence 30.10, $4925Claude Sonnet 5 (High) (Anthropic): intelligence 31.70, $2086Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) (Anthropic): intelligence 24.30, $653Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) (Anthropic): intelligence 38.20, $6998Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) (Anthropic): intelligence 28.10, $1218Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhigh) (Anthropic): intelligence 34.40, $3255Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 46.80, $1027Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 56.00, $7260Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 40.80, $622Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 51.90, $2177DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) (DeepSeek): intelligence 11.40, $461DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) (DeepSeek): intelligence 8.50, $25.4DeepSeek V3 0324 (DeepSeek): intelligence 9.70, $19.9DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (High) (DeepSeek): intelligence 24.40, $121DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max) (DeepSeek): intelligence 24.20, $149DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max) (DeepSeek): intelligence 34.30, $200DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max) (DeepSeek): intelligence 34.80, $1081DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424 (Max) (DeepSeek): intelligence 30.40, $277DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 (Max) (DeepSeek): intelligence 36.00, $1122DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 (Non-reasoning) (DeepSeek): intelligence 20.40, $451DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) (DeepSeek): intelligence 39.50, $672DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Non-reasoning) (DeepSeek): intelligence 24.70, $239DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (Max) (DeepSeek): intelligence 45.10, $445Gemini 2.5 Pro (Google): intelligence 16.10, $823Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite (Google): intelligence 15.60, $156Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview (Google): intelligence 29.70, $1935Gemini 3.5 Flash (High) (Google): intelligence 32.60, $4222Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (Google): intelligence 22.20, $366Gemini 3.6 Flash (High) (Google): intelligence 34.00, $1614Gemini 3.8 Flash (High) (Google): intelligence 40.90, $1623Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) (Google): intelligence 39.80, $1100Gemini 4 Argon (High) (Google): intelligence 52.60, $2407Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) (Google): intelligence 8.90, $14.7GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) (Z AI): intelligence 26.10, $1487GLM-5.2 (Max) (Z AI): intelligence 33.70, $2097GLM-5.3 (Low) (Z AI): intelligence 34.30, $1013GLM-5.3 (Max) (Z AI): intelligence 44.80, $2503GLM-5.3-Flash (Z AI): intelligence 41.80, $306GPT-5 mini (High) (OpenAI): intelligence 16.80, $189GPT-5.4 mini (Xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 24.10, $1524GPT-5.4 nano (Xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 20.70, $331GPT-5.5 (High) (OpenAI): intelligence 37.00, $3411GPT-5.5 (Medium) (OpenAI): intelligence 33.80, $2095GPT-5.5 (Xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 38.40, $5294GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026) (OpenAI): intelligence 26.00, $1184GPT-5.6 Luna (High) (OpenAI): intelligence 32.10, $108GPT-5.6 Luna (Low) (OpenAI): intelligence 21.00, $27.0GPT-5.6 Luna (Max) (OpenAI): intelligence 37.30, $320GPT-5.6 Luna (Medium) (OpenAI): intelligence 25.00, $44.3GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-reasoning) (OpenAI): intelligence 15.50, $23.0GPT-5.6 Luna (Xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 34.60, $179GPT-5.6 Sol (High) (OpenAI): intelligence 42.30, $1487GPT-5.6 Sol (Low) (OpenAI): intelligence 33.50, $637GPT-5.6 Sol (Max) (OpenAI): intelligence 47.00, $3465GPT-5.6 Sol (Medium) (OpenAI): intelligence 39.20, $997GPT-5.6 Sol (Xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 44.00, $2082GPT-5.6 Terra (High) (OpenAI): intelligence 34.20, $768GPT-5.6 Terra (Low) (OpenAI): intelligence 27.50, $350GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) (OpenAI): intelligence 42.10, $2501GPT-5.6 Terra (Medium) (OpenAI): intelligence 30.10, $447GPT-5.6 Terra (Non-reasoning) (OpenAI): intelligence 20.80, $256GPT-5.6 Terra (Xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 38.00, $1187GPT-6 Astra (High) (OpenAI): intelligence 50.90, $2925GPT-6 Astra (Low) (OpenAI): intelligence 45.80, $1537GPT-6 Astra (Max) (OpenAI): intelligence 52.70, $5324GPT-6 Astra (Medium) (OpenAI): intelligence 49.60, $2434GPT-6 Astra (Xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 52.40, $3803GPT-6 Luna (Non-reasoning) (OpenAI): intelligence 18.50, $19.2GPT-6 Sol (High) (OpenAI): intelligence 42.40, $605GPT-6 Sol (Low) (OpenAI): intelligence 34.20, $269GPT-6 Sol (Max) (OpenAI): intelligence 47.60, $1536GPT-6 Sol (Medium) (OpenAI): intelligence 39.80, $416GPT-6 Sol (Non-reasoning) (OpenAI): intelligence 28.50, $449GPT-6 Sol (Xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 44.20, $855GPT-6.1 Sol (Low) (OpenAI): intelligence 42.10, $250gpt-oss-120b (High) (OpenAI): intelligence 11.60, $123gpt-oss-20b (High) (OpenAI): intelligence 9.00, $28.8Granite 4.2 30B (IBM): intelligence 12.70, $111Granite 4.2 3B (IBM): intelligence 9.10, $14.9Granite 4.2 8B (IBM): intelligence 11.10, $53.1Grok 4.3 (High) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 24.90, $363Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoning) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 14.00, $250Grok 4.5 (High) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 38.80, $1244Grok 4.6 (High) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 44.30, $1963Grok 4.6 (Low) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 35.10, $614Grok 4.6 (Medium) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 42.80, $1557Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 44.20, $2242Grok 4.7 (High) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 46.30, $3881Grok 4.7 (Low) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 42.20, $1631Grok 4.7 (Xhigh) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 46.40, $4967Hy3 (Tencent): intelligence 25.30, $150Inkling Small (Thinking Machines): intelligence 25.70, $241Kimi K2.6 (Reasoning) (Kimi): intelligence 27.00, $1528Kimi K2.7 Code (Kimi): intelligence 25.80, $993Kimi K3 (Low) (Kimi): intelligence 30.10, $1190Kimi K3 (Max) (Kimi): intelligence 43.60, $3658Ling 3.1 Flash (InclusionAI): intelligence 41.10, $1015Ling 3.1 Flash 1019 (InclusionAI): intelligence 43.90, $1552Llama 4 Maverick (Meta): intelligence 9.30, $44.0Llama 4 Scout (Meta): intelligence 6.50, $73.6LongCat 2.0 (LongCat): intelligence 19.10, $545Mercury 2 (Inception): intelligence 10.80, $105Mercury 2.5 (Inception): intelligence 12.30, $218MiMo-V2.5 (Xiaomi): intelligence 21.80, $61.9MiMo-V2.5-Pro (Reasoning) (Xiaomi): intelligence 26.00, $231MiniMax-M3 (MiniMax): intelligence 29.20, $538MiniMax-M3.1-Flash (MiniMax): intelligence 42.70, $283Ministral 3 14B (Mistral): intelligence 6.00, $37.6Ministral 3 3B (Mistral): intelligence 4.80, $12.2Ministral 3 8B (Mistral): intelligence 5.50, $27.5Mistral Large 3 (Mistral): intelligence 9.30, $46.4Mistral Large 4 Preview (Mistral): intelligence 38.40, $1608Mistral Medium 3.5 (Mistral): intelligence 14.20, $1264Mistral Small 3.1 (Mistral): intelligence 7.10, $27.8Mistral Small 3.2 (Mistral): intelligence 7.00, $122Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) (Mistral): intelligence 11.30, $42.5Muse Glimmer (High) (Meta): intelligence 17.50, $146Muse Spark 1.1 (Xhigh) (Meta): intelligence 33.70, $1737Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh) (Meta): intelligence 39.60, $1385Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) (Meta): intelligence 48.10, $2000Muse Spark 1.3 (Xhigh) (Meta): intelligence 45.10, $1655Muse Spark Open (Xhigh) (Meta): intelligence 38.90, $1185Muse Wonder (Max) (Meta): intelligence 52.40, $5787Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) (NVIDIA): intelligence 12.80, $1319Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) (NVIDIA): intelligence 22.90, $697Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (NVIDIA): intelligence 12.90, $92.8Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (NVIDIA): intelligence 26.50, $286NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) (NVIDIA): intelligence 8.90, $63.7Qwen3 Coder Next (Alibaba): intelligence 9.20, $405Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Reasoning) (Alibaba): intelligence 15.60, $661Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) (Alibaba): intelligence 18.40, $941Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) (Alibaba): intelligence 11.20, $329Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) (Alibaba): intelligence 21.40, $1145Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning) (Alibaba): intelligence 18.20, $896Qwen3.7 Max (Alibaba): intelligence 29.50, $2277Qwen3.7 Plus (Alibaba): intelligence 25.20, $428Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B (Alibaba): intelligence 39.90, $2632Qwen3.8 27B (Low) (Alibaba): intelligence 26.20, $1060Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) (Alibaba): intelligence 27.60, $1165Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) (Alibaba): intelligence 20.20, $2022Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) (Alibaba): intelligence 33.70, $1336Qwen3.8 Max (Alibaba): intelligence 40.20, $3172Qwen3.8 Max (0902) (Alibaba): intelligence 45.40, $4935Qwen3.8-Flash-Next (Alibaba): intelligence 39.80, $363Ring-2.6-1T (InclusionAI): intelligence 16.60, $576Solar Mini 4 (Upstage): intelligence 24.10, $502Solar Pro 3 (Upstage): intelligence 7.80, $159Solar Pro 4 (Upstage): intelligence 26.60, $737Step 5 Preview (StepFun): intelligence 43.70, $1190Trinity Large Thinking (Arcee AI): intelligence 10.80, $233GPT-6 Luna (Low) (OpenAI): intelligence 21.50, $10.6GPT-6 Luna (Medium) (OpenAI): intelligence 29.90, $31.2GPT-6 Luna (High) (OpenAI): intelligence 32.90, $47.9Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium) (Anthropic): intelligence 34.50, $56.4GPT-6 Luna (Xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 34.60, $66.8Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) (Anthropic): intelligence 37.80, $94.1MiMo-V2.6-Flash (Xiaomi): intelligence 37.90, $110GPT-6 Luna (Max) (OpenAI): intelligence 38.10, $122Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh) (Anthropic): intelligence 41.20, $158MiMo-V2.6-Pro (Xiaomi): intelligence 46.30, $207GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) (OpenAI): intelligence 47.80, $361GPT-6.1 Sol (High) (OpenAI): intelligence 50.20, $521GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 51.00, $662GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) (OpenAI): intelligence 51.80, $1082Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 53.60, $2172Kimi K3.1 Pro (Kimi): intelligence 55.10, $3117Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 56.00, $4057Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 57.60, $8708Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 35.90, $482Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 51.20, $1627Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback)Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback)GPT-6 Luna (Low)Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback)
Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback)Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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