Claude Sonnet 5 (High) vs GPT-5.6 Terra (Non-reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (High) by Anthropic or GPT-5.6 Terra (Non-reasoning) by OpenAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5 (High) scores 10.9 points higher (31.7 vs 20.8) but costs 8.2× as much to run the benchmark ($2086 vs $256; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5 (High) when you need intelligence above 20.8, and GPT-5.6 Terra (Non-reasoning) when 20.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (High) | GPT-5.6 Terra (Non-reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 31.7 | 20.8 | −34.4% GPT-5.6 Terra (Non-re… is 34.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,086.04 | $255.77 | −87.7% GPT-5.6 Terra (Non-re… is 87.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 23.60s | 5.11s | −78.3% GPT-5.6 Terra (Non-re… is 78.3% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $2.00 / $12.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
GPT-5.6 Terra (Non-reasoning) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (High): 34.4% less intelligence, 87.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 78.3% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- GPT-5.6 Terra (Non-reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Claude Sonnet 5 (High)GPT-5.6 Terra (Non-reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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