Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Claude Opus 5 (Medium)

Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Claude Opus 5 (Medium) by Anthropic? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.

Trade-off
AnthropicClaude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback)On the frontier
Intelligence
57.60
Total cost
$8708
AnthropicClaude Opus 5 (Medium)Off the frontier
Intelligence
44.80
Total cost
$2732
Verdict

Depends on your budget

Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 12.8 points higher (57.6 vs 44.8) but costs 3.2× as much to run the benchmark ($8708 vs $2732; both flagship class). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) when you need intelligence above 44.8, and Claude Opus 5 (Medium) when 44.8 is enough.

MetricClaude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback)Claude Opus 5 (Medium)Difference
Intelligence (higher is better)57.644.8−22.2% Claude Opus 5 (Medium) is 22.2% less intelligent
Total AA cost (lower is better)$8,708.20$2,731.91−68.6% Claude Opus 5 (Medium) is 68.6% cheaper
End-to-end time (lower is better)626.13s13.14s−97.9% Claude Opus 5 (Medium) is 97.9% faster
Price per 1M tokens (in / out)$4.00 / $20.0$5.00 / $25.0
Input modalitiesText, ImageText, Image

Claude Opus 5 (Medium) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback): 22.2% less intelligence, 68.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 97.9% faster end-to-end.

Open this matchup in the interactive pickerClaude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback): what beats itClaude Opus 5 (Medium): what beats it
Today's Pareto frontier

Against the frontier

0204060$10$20$50$100$200$500$1k$2k$5k$10k$20kCost to run the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (USD, log scale)Intelligence IndexApodex 1.1 (Apodex): intelligence 26.40, $939Beam 1.0 (Reflection): intelligence 30.30, $319Celeris-1 (Celeris): intelligence 6.30, $60.0Claude 4.5 Haiku (Reasoning) (Anthropic): intelligence 16.90, $594Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) (Anthropic): intelligence 20.70, $1501Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 49.60, $11161Claude Fable 5.1 (High, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 51.20, $5242Claude Fable 5.1 (Low, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 46.80, $3158Claude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 53.40, $13129Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 48.90, $3983Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 53.20, $9063Claude Haiku 5.5 (Low) (Anthropic): intelligence 29.50, $34.3Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) (Anthropic): intelligence 43.40, $330Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) (Anthropic): intelligence 41.80, $6874Claude Opus 5 (High) (Anthropic): intelligence 48.10, $4332Claude Opus 5 (Low) (Anthropic): intelligence 39.40, $1561Claude Opus 5 (Max) (Anthropic): intelligence 50.80, $7275Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) (Anthropic): intelligence 49.70, $5868Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 42.30, $860Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 51.20, $1627Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) (Anthropic): intelligence 30.10, $4925Claude Sonnet 5 (High) (Anthropic): intelligence 31.70, $2086Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) (Anthropic): intelligence 24.30, $653Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) (Anthropic): intelligence 38.20, $6998Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) (Anthropic): intelligence 28.10, $1218Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhigh) (Anthropic): intelligence 34.40, $3255Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 46.80, $1027Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 35.90, $482Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 56.00, $7260Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 40.80, $622Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 51.90, $2177DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) (DeepSeek): intelligence 11.40, $461DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) (DeepSeek): intelligence 8.50, $25.4DeepSeek V3 0324 (DeepSeek): intelligence 9.70, $19.9DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (High) (DeepSeek): intelligence 24.40, $121DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max) (DeepSeek): intelligence 24.20, $149DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max) (DeepSeek): intelligence 34.30, $200DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max) (DeepSeek): intelligence 34.80, $1081DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424 (Max) (DeepSeek): intelligence 30.40, $277DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 (Max) (DeepSeek): intelligence 36.00, $1122DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 (Non-reasoning) (DeepSeek): intelligence 20.40, $451DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) (DeepSeek): intelligence 39.50, $672DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Non-reasoning) (DeepSeek): intelligence 24.70, $239DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (Max) (DeepSeek): intelligence 45.10, $445Gemini 2.5 Pro (Google): intelligence 16.10, $823Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite (Google): intelligence 15.60, $156Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview (Google): intelligence 29.70, $1935Gemini 3.5 Flash (High) (Google): intelligence 32.60, $4222Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (Google): intelligence 22.20, $366Gemini 3.6 Flash (High) (Google): intelligence 34.00, $1614Gemini 3.8 Flash (High) (Google): intelligence 40.90, $1623Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) (Google): intelligence 39.80, $1100Gemini 4 Argon (High) (Google): intelligence 52.60, $2407Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) (Google): intelligence 8.90, $14.7GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) (Z AI): intelligence 26.10, $1487GLM-5.2 (Max) (Z AI): intelligence 33.70, $2097GLM-5.3 (Low) (Z AI): intelligence 34.30, $1013GLM-5.3 (Max) (Z AI): intelligence 44.80, $2503GLM-5.3-Flash (Z AI): intelligence 41.80, $306GPT-5 mini (High) (OpenAI): intelligence 16.80, $189GPT-5.4 mini (Xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 24.10, $1524GPT-5.4 nano (Xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 20.70, $331GPT-5.5 (High) (OpenAI): intelligence 37.00, $3411GPT-5.5 (Medium) (OpenAI): intelligence 33.80, $2095GPT-5.5 (Xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 38.40, $5294GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026) (OpenAI): intelligence 26.00, $1184GPT-5.6 Luna (High) (OpenAI): intelligence 32.10, $108GPT-5.6 Luna (Low) (OpenAI): intelligence 21.00, $27.0GPT-5.6 Luna (Max) (OpenAI): intelligence 37.30, $320GPT-5.6 Luna (Medium) (OpenAI): intelligence 25.00, $44.3GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-reasoning) (OpenAI): intelligence 15.50, $23.0GPT-5.6 Luna (Xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 34.60, $179GPT-5.6 Sol (High) (OpenAI): intelligence 42.30, $1487GPT-5.6 Sol (Low) (OpenAI): intelligence 33.50, $637GPT-5.6 Sol (Max) (OpenAI): intelligence 47.00, $3465GPT-5.6 Sol (Medium) (OpenAI): intelligence 39.20, $997GPT-5.6 Sol (Xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 44.00, $2082GPT-5.6 Terra (High) (OpenAI): intelligence 34.20, $768GPT-5.6 Terra (Low) (OpenAI): intelligence 27.50, $350GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) (OpenAI): intelligence 42.10, $2501GPT-5.6 Terra (Medium) (OpenAI): intelligence 30.10, $447GPT-5.6 Terra (Non-reasoning) (OpenAI): intelligence 20.80, $256GPT-5.6 Terra (Xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 38.00, $1187GPT-6 Astra (High) (OpenAI): intelligence 50.90, $2925GPT-6 Astra (Low) (OpenAI): intelligence 45.80, $1537GPT-6 Astra (Max) (OpenAI): intelligence 52.70, $5324GPT-6 Astra (Medium) (OpenAI): intelligence 49.60, $2434GPT-6 Astra (Xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 52.40, $3803GPT-6 Luna (Non-reasoning) (OpenAI): intelligence 18.50, $19.2GPT-6 Sol (High) (OpenAI): intelligence 42.40, $605GPT-6 Sol (Low) (OpenAI): intelligence 34.20, $269GPT-6 Sol (Max) (OpenAI): intelligence 47.60, $1536GPT-6 Sol (Medium) (OpenAI): intelligence 39.80, $416GPT-6 Sol (Non-reasoning) (OpenAI): intelligence 28.50, $449GPT-6 Sol (Xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 44.20, $855GPT-6.1 Sol (Low) (OpenAI): intelligence 42.10, $250gpt-oss-120b (High) (OpenAI): intelligence 11.60, $123gpt-oss-20b (High) (OpenAI): intelligence 9.00, $28.8Granite 4.2 30B (IBM): intelligence 12.70, $111Granite 4.2 3B (IBM): intelligence 9.10, $14.9Granite 4.2 8B (IBM): intelligence 11.10, $53.1Grok 4.3 (High) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 24.90, $363Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoning) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 14.00, $250Grok 4.5 (High) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 38.80, $1244Grok 4.6 (High) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 44.30, $1963Grok 4.6 (Low) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 35.10, $614Grok 4.6 (Medium) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 42.80, $1557Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 44.20, $2242Grok 4.7 (High) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 46.30, $3881Grok 4.7 (Low) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 42.20, $1631Grok 4.7 (Xhigh) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 46.40, $4967Hy3 (Tencent): intelligence 25.30, $150Inkling Small (Thinking Machines): intelligence 25.70, $241Kimi K2.6 (Reasoning) (Kimi): intelligence 27.00, $1528Kimi K2.7 Code (Kimi): intelligence 25.80, $993Kimi K3 (Low) (Kimi): intelligence 30.10, $1190Kimi K3 (Max) (Kimi): intelligence 43.60, $3658Ling 3.1 Flash (InclusionAI): intelligence 41.10, $1015Ling 3.1 Flash 1019 (InclusionAI): intelligence 43.90, $1552Llama 4 Maverick (Meta): intelligence 9.30, $44.0Llama 4 Scout (Meta): intelligence 6.50, $73.6LongCat 2.0 (LongCat): intelligence 19.10, $545Mercury 2 (Inception): intelligence 10.80, $105Mercury 2.5 (Inception): intelligence 12.30, $218MiMo-V2.5 (Xiaomi): intelligence 21.80, $61.9MiMo-V2.5-Pro (Reasoning) (Xiaomi): intelligence 26.00, $231MiniMax-M3 (MiniMax): intelligence 29.20, $538MiniMax-M3.1-Flash (MiniMax): intelligence 42.70, $283Ministral 3 14B (Mistral): intelligence 6.00, $37.6Ministral 3 3B (Mistral): intelligence 4.80, $12.2Ministral 3 8B (Mistral): intelligence 5.50, $27.5Mistral Large 3 (Mistral): intelligence 9.30, $46.4Mistral Large 4 Preview (Mistral): intelligence 38.40, $1608Mistral Medium 3.5 (Mistral): intelligence 14.20, $1264Mistral Small 3.1 (Mistral): intelligence 7.10, $27.8Mistral Small 3.2 (Mistral): intelligence 7.00, $122Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) (Mistral): intelligence 11.30, $42.5Muse Glimmer (High) (Meta): intelligence 17.50, $146Muse Spark 1.1 (Xhigh) (Meta): intelligence 33.70, $1737Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh) (Meta): intelligence 39.60, $1385Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) (Meta): intelligence 48.10, $2000Muse Spark 1.3 (Xhigh) (Meta): intelligence 45.10, $1655Muse Spark Open (Xhigh) (Meta): intelligence 38.90, $1185Muse Wonder (Max) (Meta): intelligence 52.40, $5787Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) (NVIDIA): intelligence 12.80, $1319Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) (NVIDIA): intelligence 22.90, $697Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (NVIDIA): intelligence 12.90, $92.8Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (NVIDIA): intelligence 26.50, $286NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) (NVIDIA): intelligence 8.90, $63.7Qwen3 Coder Next (Alibaba): intelligence 9.20, $405Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Reasoning) (Alibaba): intelligence 15.60, $661Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) (Alibaba): intelligence 18.40, $941Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) (Alibaba): intelligence 11.20, $329Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) (Alibaba): intelligence 21.40, $1145Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning) (Alibaba): intelligence 18.20, $896Qwen3.7 Max (Alibaba): intelligence 29.50, $2277Qwen3.7 Plus (Alibaba): intelligence 25.20, $428Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B (Alibaba): intelligence 39.90, $2632Qwen3.8 27B (Low) (Alibaba): intelligence 26.20, $1060Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) (Alibaba): intelligence 27.60, $1165Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) (Alibaba): intelligence 20.20, $2022Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) (Alibaba): intelligence 33.70, $1336Qwen3.8 Max (Alibaba): intelligence 40.20, $3172Qwen3.8 Max (0902) (Alibaba): intelligence 45.40, $4935Qwen3.8-Flash-Next (Alibaba): intelligence 39.80, $363Ring-2.6-1T (InclusionAI): intelligence 16.60, $576Solar Mini 4 (Upstage): intelligence 24.10, $502Solar Pro 3 (Upstage): intelligence 7.80, $159Solar Pro 4 (Upstage): intelligence 26.60, $737Step 5 Preview (StepFun): intelligence 43.70, $1190Trinity Large Thinking (Arcee AI): intelligence 10.80, $233GPT-6 Luna (Low) (OpenAI): intelligence 21.50, $10.6GPT-6 Luna (Medium) (OpenAI): intelligence 29.90, $31.2GPT-6 Luna (High) (OpenAI): intelligence 32.90, $47.9Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium) (Anthropic): intelligence 34.50, $56.4GPT-6 Luna (Xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 34.60, $66.8Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) (Anthropic): intelligence 37.80, $94.1MiMo-V2.6-Flash (Xiaomi): intelligence 37.90, $110GPT-6 Luna (Max) (OpenAI): intelligence 38.10, $122Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh) (Anthropic): intelligence 41.20, $158MiMo-V2.6-Pro (Xiaomi): intelligence 46.30, $207GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) (OpenAI): intelligence 47.80, $361GPT-6.1 Sol (High) (OpenAI): intelligence 50.20, $521GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 51.00, $662GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) (OpenAI): intelligence 51.80, $1082Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 53.60, $2172Kimi K3.1 Pro (Kimi): intelligence 55.10, $3117Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 56.00, $4057Claude Opus 5 (Medium) (Anthropic): intelligence 44.80, $2732Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 57.60, $8708Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback)Claude Opus 5 (Medium)GPT-6 Luna (Low)
Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback)Claude Opus 5 (Medium)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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