Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) vs GPT-5.5 (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or GPT-5.5 (Medium) by OpenAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback)
GPT-5.5 (Medium) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback): 27.8% less intelligence, 103.9% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 26.3% faster end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) | GPT-5.5 (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 46.8 | 33.8 | −27.8% GPT-5.5 (Medium) is 27.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,027.40 | $2,095.12 | +103.9% GPT-5.5 (Medium) is 2.0× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 15.60s | 11.50s | −26.3% GPT-5.5 (Medium) is 26.3% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $5.00 / $30.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
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.
- GPT-5.5 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback)GPT-5.5 (Medium)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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