Claude Opus 5 (Max) vs Claude Opus 5 (Low)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Max) by Anthropic or Claude Opus 5 (Low) 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 (Max) scores 11.4 points higher (50.8 vs 39.4) but costs 4.7× as much to run the benchmark ($7275 vs $1561; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Max) when you need intelligence above 39.4, and Claude Opus 5 (Low) when 39.4 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Max) | Claude Opus 5 (Low) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 50.8 | 39.4 | −22.4% Claude Opus 5 (Low) is 22.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $7,274.74 | $1,560.91 | −78.5% Claude Opus 5 (Low) is 78.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 50.36s | 11.79s | −76.6% Claude Opus 5 (Low) is 76.6% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $5.00 / $25.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Opus 5 (Low) vs Claude Opus 5 (Max): 22.4% less intelligence, 78.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 76.6% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Max) 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 (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Opus 5 (Max)Claude Opus 5 (Low)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5/claude-opus-5-low · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5/claude-opus-5-low?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill