Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Low)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) by Anthropic? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallba… scores 22.5 points higher (46.8 vs 24.3) but costs 1.6× as much to run the benchmark ($1027 vs $653; both premium class). Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallba… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude Sonnet 5 (Low).
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) | Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 46.8 | 24.3 | −48.1% Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) is 48.1% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,027.40 | $652.70 | −36.5% Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) is 36.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 15.86s | 8.64s | −45.5% Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) is 45.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $2.00 / $10.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback): 48.1% less intelligence, 36.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 45.5% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
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 (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback)Claude Sonnet 5 (Low)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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