Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs GPT-5 mini (High)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or GPT-5 mini (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 39.2 points higher (56.0 vs 16.8) but costs 22× as much to run the benchmark ($4057 vs $189; 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 16.8, and GPT-5 mini (High) when 16.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | GPT-5 mini (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.0 | 16.8 | −70.0% GPT-5 mini (High) is 70.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,056.65 | $188.66 | −95.3% GPT-5 mini (High) is 95.3% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 123.06s | 58.72s | −52.3% GPT-5 mini (High) is 52.3% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.25 / $2.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
GPT-5 mini (High) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 70.0% less intelligence, 95.3% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 52.3% 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 mini (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh) scores 41.20 for $158.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)GPT-5 mini (High)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-xhigh/gpt-5-mini · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-xhigh/gpt-5-mini?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill