Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, 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 (Xhigh, Default Fallb… scores 11.1 points higher (51.9 vs 40.8) but costs 3.5× as much to run the benchmark ($2177 vs $622; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallb… when you need intelligence above 40.8, and Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fall… when 40.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 40.8 | 51.9 | +27.2% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xh… is 27.2% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $622.28 | $2,176.82 | +249.8% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xh… is 3.5× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 6.26s | 32.10s | +412.8% Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xh… is 412.8% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $2.00 / $10.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback): 27.2% more intelligence, 249.8% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 412.8% slower end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5-medium/claude-sonnet-5-5-xhigh · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5-medium/claude-sonnet-5-5-xhigh?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill