Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Gemini 3.6 Flash (High)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Gemini 3.6 Flash (High) by Google? 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 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… scores 22.0 points higher (56.0 vs 34.0) but costs 2.5× as much to run the benchmark ($4057 vs $1614; flagship vs premium cost classes). Pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Gemini 3.6 Flash (High).
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Gemini 3.6 Flash (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.0 | 34.0 | −39.3% Gemini 3.6 Flash (Hig… is 39.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,056.65 | $1,614.42 | −60.2% Gemini 3.6 Flash (Hig… is 60.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 123.06s | 17.79s | −85.5% Gemini 3.6 Flash (Hig… is 85.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.75 / $3.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemini 3.6 Flash (High) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 39.3% less intelligence, 60.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 85.5% faster end-to-end.
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.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)Gemini 3.6 Flash (High)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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