Claude Opus 5 (High) vs Claude Opus 5 (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (High) 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
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (High) scores 3.3 points higher (48.1 vs 44.8) but costs 1.6× as much to run the benchmark ($4332 vs $2732; both flagship class). Pick Claude Opus 5 (High) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude Opus 5 (Medium).
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (High) | Claude Opus 5 (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 48.1 | 44.8 | −6.9% Claude Opus 5 (Medium) is 6.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,331.68 | $2,731.91 | −36.9% Claude Opus 5 (Medium) is 36.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 20.99s | 13.14s | −37.4% Claude Opus 5 (Medium) is 37.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $5.00 / $25.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Opus 5 (Medium) vs Claude Opus 5 (High): 6.9% less intelligence, 36.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 37.4% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Claude Opus 5 (Medium) 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 (High)Claude Opus 5 (Medium)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-high/claude-opus-5-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-high/claude-opus-5-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill