Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Grok 4.6 (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) by SpaceXAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… scores 11.8 points higher (56.0 vs 44.2) but costs 1.8× as much to run the benchmark ($4057 vs $2242; both flagship class). Pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Grok 4.6 (Xhigh).
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.0 | 44.2 | −21.1% Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) is 21.1% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,056.65 | $2,241.91 | −44.7% Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) is 44.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 115.71s | 40.33s | −65.1% Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) is 65.1% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 21.1% less intelligence, 44.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 65.1% 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.
- Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)Grok 4.6 (Xhigh)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/grok-4-6-xhigh · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-xhigh/grok-4-6-xhigh?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill