Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) by Anthropic? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 29.5 points higher (57.6 vs 28.1) but costs 7.1× as much to run the benchmark ($8708 vs $1218; 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 28.1, and Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) when 28.1 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 57.6 | 28.1 | −51.2% Claude Sonnet 5 (Medi… is 51.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $8,708.20 | $1,218.17 | −86.0% Claude Sonnet 5 (Medi… is 86.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 626.13s | 9.02s | −98.6% Claude Sonnet 5 (Medi… is 98.6% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $2.00 / $10.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback): 51.2% less intelligence, 86.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 98.6% 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 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
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-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5/claude-sonnet-5-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill