Claude Opus 5 (Medium) vs GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Medium) by Anthropic or GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-reasoning) by OpenAI? 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 (Medium) scores 29.3 points higher (44.8 vs 15.5) but costs 119× as much to run the benchmark ($2732 vs $23.0; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Medium) when you need intelligence above 15.5, and GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-reasoning) when 15.5 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Medium) | GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 44.8 | 15.5 | −65.4% GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-rea… is 65.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,731.91 | $22.97 | −99.2% GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-rea… is 99.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 12.98s | 4.98s | −61.6% GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-rea… is 61.6% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.20 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-reasoning) vs Claude Opus 5 (Medium): 65.4% less intelligence, 99.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 61.6% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- 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.
- GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Claude Opus 5 (Medium)GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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