Claude Opus 5 (High) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (High) by Anthropic or Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhigh) by Anthropic? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (High) scores 13.7 points higher (48.1 vs 34.4) but costs 1.3× as much to run the benchmark ($4332 vs $3255; both flagship class). Pick Claude Opus 5 (High) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhigh).
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (High) | Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 48.1 | 34.4 | −28.5% Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhig… is 28.5% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,331.68 | $3,255.40 | −24.8% Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhig… is 24.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 26.50s | 28.41s | +7.2% Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhig… is 7.2% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $2.00 / $10.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhigh) vs Claude Opus 5 (High): 28.5% less intelligence, 24.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 7.2% slower 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 Sonnet 5 (Xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Claude Opus 5 (High)Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhigh)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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