Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) vs GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) by Anthropic or GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026) 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
GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026) scores 1.7 points higher (26.0 vs 24.3) but costs 1.5× as much to run the benchmark ($987 vs $653; both premium class). Pick GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude Sonnet 5 (Low).
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) | GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 24.3 | 26.0 | +7.0% GPT-5.5 Instant (June… is 7.0% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $652.70 | $986.85 | +51.2% GPT-5.5 Instant (June… is 51.2% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 9.43s | 16.68s | +76.9% GPT-5.5 Instant (June… is 76.9% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $5.00 / $30.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Low): 7.0% more intelligence, 51.2% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 76.9% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
- GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Low)GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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