Claude Opus 5 (Max) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Max) 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 (Max) scores 22.7 points higher (50.8 vs 28.1) but costs 6.0× as much to run the benchmark ($7275 vs $1218; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Max) when you need intelligence above 28.1, and Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) when 28.1 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Max) | Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 50.8 | 28.1 | −44.7% Claude Sonnet 5 (Medi… is 44.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $7,274.74 | $1,218.17 | −83.3% Claude Sonnet 5 (Medi… is 83.3% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 63.34s | 9.27s | −85.4% Claude Sonnet 5 (Medi… is 85.4% 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 (Max): 44.7% less intelligence, 83.3% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 85.4% 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 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 (Max)Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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