Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs GPT-6.1 Sol (High)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or GPT-6.1 Sol (High) by OpenAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallba… scores 1.0 points higher (51.2 vs 50.2) but costs 3.1× as much to run the benchmark ($1627 vs $521; both premium class). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallba… when you need intelligence above 50.2, and GPT-6.1 Sol (High) when 50.2 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) | GPT-6.1 Sol (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 51.2 | 50.2 | −2.0% GPT-6.1 Sol (High) is 2.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,626.81 | $521.32 | −68.0% GPT-6.1 Sol (High) is 68.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 20.28s | 43.44s | +114.2% GPT-6.1 Sol (High) is 114.2% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $2.00 / $10.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
GPT-6.1 Sol (High) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback): 2.0% less intelligence, 68.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 114.2% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
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-6.1 Sol (High) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback)GPT-6.1 Sol (High)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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