Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) by Anthropic or Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) by Anthropic? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) scores 21.6 points higher (49.7 vs 28.1) but costs 4.8× as much to run the benchmark ($5868 vs $1218; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) when you need intelligence above 28.1, and Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) when 28.1 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) | Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 49.7 | 28.1 | −43.5% Claude Sonnet 5 (Medi… is 43.5% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $5,867.76 | $1,218.17 | −79.2% Claude Sonnet 5 (Medi… is 79.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 35.31s | 9.27s | −73.7% Claude Sonnet 5 (Medi… is 73.7% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $2.00 / $10.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) vs Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh): 43.5% less intelligence, 79.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 73.7% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) 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 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh)Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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