Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) by Anthropic? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallba… scores 10.9 points higher (46.8 vs 35.9) but costs 2.1× as much to run the benchmark ($1027 vs $482; premium vs mid-range cost classes). Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallba… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallbac….
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 46.8 | 35.9 | −23.3% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Lo… is 23.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,027.40 | $482.13 | −53.1% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Lo… is 53.1% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 14.89s | 6.19s | −58.4% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Lo… is 58.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $2.00 / $10.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback): 23.3% less intelligence, 53.1% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 58.4% faster end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5-high/claude-sonnet-5-5-low · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5-high/claude-sonnet-5-5-low?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill