Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs Ling 3.1 Flash
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Ling 3.1 Flash by InclusionAI? 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
Ling 3.1 Flash scores 0.3 points higher (41.1 vs 40.8) but costs 1.6× as much to run the benchmark ($1015 vs $622; both premium class). Pick Ling 3.1 Flash when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fall….
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) | Ling 3.1 Flash | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 40.8 | 41.1 | +0.7% Ling 3.1 Flash is 0.7% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $622.28 | $1,014.56 | +63.0% Ling 3.1 Flash is 63.0% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 5.98s | 13.61s | +127.6% Ling 3.1 Flash is 127.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.30 / $0.90 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Ling 3.1 Flash vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback): 0.7% more intelligence, 63.0% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 127.6% 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.
- Ling 3.1 Flash is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback)Ling 3.1 FlashToday'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-medium/ling-3-1-flash · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5-medium/ling-3-1-flash?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill