Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs GPT-5.5 (High)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or GPT-5.5 (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 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… scores 19.0 points higher (56.0 vs 37.0) but costs 1.2× as much to run the benchmark ($4057 vs $3411; both flagship class). Pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise GPT-5.5 (High).
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | GPT-5.5 (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.0 | 37.0 | −33.9% GPT-5.5 (High) is 33.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,056.65 | $3,410.76 | −15.9% GPT-5.5 (High) is 15.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 123.06s | 19.79s | −83.9% GPT-5.5 (High) is 83.9% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $5.00 / $30.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
GPT-5.5 (High) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 33.9% less intelligence, 15.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 83.9% 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.
- GPT-5.5 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)GPT-5.5 (High)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-xhigh/gpt-5-5-high · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-xhigh/gpt-5-5-high?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill