Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite by Google? 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 40.4 points higher (56.0 vs 15.6) but costs 26× as much to run the benchmark ($4057 vs $156; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… when you need intelligence above 15.6, and Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite when 15.6 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.0 | 15.6 | −72.1% Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is 72.1% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,056.65 | $155.87 | −96.2% Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is 96.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 125.20s | 6.05s | −95.2% Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is 95.2% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.25 / $1.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 72.1% less intelligence, 96.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 95.2% 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.
- Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Max) scores 38.10 for $122.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-xhigh/gemini-3-1-flash-lite-preview · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-xhigh/gemini-3-1-flash-lite-preview?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill