Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) vs GPT-5 mini (High)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or GPT-5 mini (High) by OpenAI? 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 Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallba… scores 30.0 points higher (46.8 vs 16.8) but costs 5.4× as much to run the benchmark ($1027 vs $189; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallba… when you need intelligence above 16.8, and GPT-5 mini (High) when 16.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) | GPT-5 mini (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 46.8 | 16.8 | −64.1% GPT-5 mini (High) is 64.1% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,027.40 | $188.66 | −81.6% GPT-5 mini (High) is 81.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 15.53s | 60.90s | +292.1% GPT-5 mini (High) is 292.1% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.25 / $2.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
GPT-5 mini (High) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback): 64.1% less intelligence, 81.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 292.1% slower 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.
- GPT-5 mini (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh) scores 41.20 for $158.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback)GPT-5 mini (High)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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