Claude Opus 5 (Max) vs Gemini 2.5 Pro
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Max) by Anthropic or Gemini 2.5 Pro by Google? 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 34.7 points higher (50.8 vs 16.1) but costs 8.8× as much to run the benchmark ($7275 vs $823; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Max) when you need intelligence above 16.1, and Gemini 2.5 Pro when 16.1 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Max) | Gemini 2.5 Pro | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 50.8 | 16.1 | −68.3% Gemini 2.5 Pro is 68.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $7,274.74 | $822.85 | −88.7% Gemini 2.5 Pro is 88.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 49.99s | 26.13s | −47.7% Gemini 2.5 Pro is 47.7% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $1.25 / $10.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemini 2.5 Pro vs Claude Opus 5 (Max): 68.3% less intelligence, 88.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 47.7% 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.
- Gemini 2.5 Pro is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Claude Opus 5 (Max)Gemini 2.5 ProToday'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/gemini-2-5-pro · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5/gemini-2-5-pro?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill