Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs GLM-5.3 (Max)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or GLM-5.3 (Max) by Z AI? 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
GLM-5.3 (Max) scores 4.0 points higher (44.8 vs 40.8) but costs 4.0× as much to run the benchmark ($2503 vs $622; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GLM-5.3 (Max) 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) | GLM-5.3 (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 40.8 | 44.8 | +9.8% GLM-5.3 (Max) is 9.8% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $622.28 | $2,503.48 | +302.3% GLM-5.3 (Max) is 4.0× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 5.98s | 28.79s | +381.4% GLM-5.3 (Max) is 381.4% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $1.40 / $4.40 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
GLM-5.3 (Max) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback): 9.8% more intelligence, 302.3% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 381.4% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
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.
- GLM-5.3 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback)GLM-5.3 (Max)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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