Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs GPT-5.6 Terra (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or GPT-5.6 Terra (Medium) by OpenAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallba… scores 21.1 points higher (51.2 vs 30.1) but costs 3.6× as much to run the benchmark ($1627 vs $447; 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 30.1, and GPT-5.6 Terra (Medium) when 30.1 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) | GPT-5.6 Terra (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 51.2 | 30.1 | −41.2% GPT-5.6 Terra (Medium) is 41.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,626.81 | $446.53 | −72.6% GPT-5.6 Terra (Medium) is 72.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 23.21s | 5.84s | −74.8% GPT-5.6 Terra (Medium) is 74.8% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $2.00 / $12.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
GPT-5.6 Terra (Medium) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback): 41.2% less intelligence, 72.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 74.8% faster end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- GPT-5.6 Terra (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-medium/gpt-5-6-terra-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-medium/gpt-5-6-terra-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill