Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) vs Beam 1.0
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Beam 1.0 by Reflection? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallbac… scores 5.6 points higher (35.9 vs 30.3) but costs 1.5× as much to run the benchmark ($482 vs $319; both mid-range class). Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallbac… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Beam 1.0.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) | Beam 1.0 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 35.9 | 30.3 | −15.6% Beam 1.0 is 15.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $482.13 | $318.73 | −33.9% Beam 1.0 is 33.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 6.19s | 8.02s | +29.6% Beam 1.0 is 29.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.40 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Beam 1.0 vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback): 15.6% less intelligence, 33.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 29.6% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- 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.
- Beam 1.0 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback)Beam 1.0Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5-low/reflection-beam · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5-low/reflection-beam?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill