Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Kimi K3 (Max)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Kimi K3 (Max) by Kimi? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)
Kimi K3 (Max) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 16.0% less intelligence, 68.0% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 62.9% slower end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Kimi K3 (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 51.9 | 43.6 | −16.0% Kimi K3 (Max) is 16.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,176.82 | $3,658.07 | +68.0% Kimi K3 (Max) is 68.0% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 33.08s | 53.89s | +62.9% Kimi K3 (Max) is 62.9% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $3.00 / $15.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- 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.
- Kimi K3 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)Kimi K3 (Max)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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