Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Grok 4.6 (High)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Grok 4.6 (High) by SpaceXAI? 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 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 13.3 points higher (57.6 vs 44.3) but costs 4.4× as much to run the benchmark ($8708 vs $1963; 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 44.3, and Grok 4.6 (High) when 44.3 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | Grok 4.6 (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 57.6 | 44.3 | −23.1% Grok 4.6 (High) is 23.1% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $8,708.20 | $1,962.90 | −77.5% Grok 4.6 (High) is 77.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 626.13s | 31.72s | −94.9% Grok 4.6 (High) is 94.9% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Grok 4.6 (High) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback): 23.1% less intelligence, 77.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 94.9% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Grok 4.6 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback)Grok 4.6 (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/grok-4-6 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5/grok-4-6?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill