Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs GPT-5.6 Sol (Xhigh)

Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or GPT-5.6 Sol (Xhigh) by OpenAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.

Trade-off

AnthropicClaude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback)Off the frontier

Intelligence: 56.00
Total cost: $7260

OpenAIGPT-5.6 Sol (Xhigh)Off the frontier

Intelligence: 44.00
Total cost: $2082

Verdict

Depends on your budget

Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallbac… scores 12.0 points higher (56.0 vs 44.0) but costs 3.5× as much to run the benchmark ($7260 vs $2082; both flagship class). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallbac… when you need intelligence above 44.0, and GPT-5.6 Sol (Xhigh) when 44.0 is enough.

Metric	Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback)	GPT-5.6 Sol (Xhigh)	Difference
Intelligence (higher is better)	56.0	44.0	−21.4% GPT-5.6 Sol (Xhigh) is 21.4% less intelligent
Total AA cost (lower is better)	$7,259.50	$2,082.28	−71.3% GPT-5.6 Sol (Xhigh) is 71.3% cheaper
End-to-end time (lower is better)	419.55s	47.67s	−88.6% GPT-5.6 Sol (Xhigh) is 88.6% faster
Price per 1M tokens (in / out)	$2.00 / $10.0	$4.00 / $20.0
Input modalities	Text, Image	Text, Image

GPT-5.6 Sol (Xhigh) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback): 21.4% less intelligence, 71.3% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 88.6% faster end-to-end.

Open this matchup in the interactive picker Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback): what beats it GPT-5.6 Sol (Xhigh): what beats it

Today's Pareto frontier

Against the frontier

Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
GPT-5.6 Sol (Xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.

Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback)GPT-5.6 Sol (Xhigh)Today's Pareto 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/gpt-5-6-sol-xhigh · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5/gpt-5-6-sol-xhigh?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill