Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) vs GPT-5.5 (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) by Anthropic or GPT-5.5 (Medium) by OpenAI? 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
GPT-5.5 (Medium) scores 9.5 points higher (33.8 vs 24.3) but costs 3.2× as much to run the benchmark ($2095 vs $653; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GPT-5.5 (Medium) when you need intelligence above 24.3, and Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) when 24.3 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) | GPT-5.5 (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 24.3 | 33.8 | +39.1% GPT-5.5 (Medium) is 39.1% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $652.70 | $2,095.12 | +221.0% GPT-5.5 (Medium) is 3.2× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 8.46s | 12.63s | +49.3% GPT-5.5 (Medium) is 49.3% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $5.00 / $30.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
GPT-5.5 (Medium) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Low): 39.1% more intelligence, 221.0% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 49.3% 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 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Low)GPT-5.5 (Medium)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-low/gpt-5-5-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-low/gpt-5-5-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill