Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Max)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) by Anthropic? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)
Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 31.8% less intelligence, 72.5% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 49.2% slower end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.0 | 38.2 | −31.8% Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) is 31.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,056.65 | $6,998.25 | +72.5% Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) is 72.5% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 123.06s | 183.62s | +49.2% Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) is 49.2% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $2.00 / $10.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)Claude Sonnet 5 (Max)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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