Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) by Anthropic? 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 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… scores 9.2 points higher (56.0 vs 46.8) but costs 3.9× as much to run the benchmark ($4057 vs $1027; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… when you need intelligence above 46.8, and Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallba… when 46.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.0 | 46.8 | −16.4% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Hi… is 16.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,056.65 | $1,027.40 | −74.7% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Hi… is 74.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 115.71s | 16.86s | −85.4% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Hi… is 85.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $2.00 / $10.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 16.4% less intelligence, 74.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 85.4% faster end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-xhigh/claude-sonnet-5-5-high · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-xhigh/claude-sonnet-5-5-high?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill