Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 16.8 points higher (57.6 vs 40.8) but costs 14× as much to run the benchmark ($8708 vs $622; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) when you need intelligence above 40.8, and Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fall… when 40.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 57.6 | 40.8 | −29.2% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Me… is 29.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $8,708.20 | $622.28 | −92.9% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Me… is 92.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 670.18s | 6.20s | −99.1% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Me… is 99.1% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $2.00 / $10.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback): 29.2% less intelligence, 92.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 99.1% faster end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5/claude-sonnet-5-5-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5/claude-sonnet-5-5-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill