Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) vs GPT-5.6 Sol (Max)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) by Anthropic or GPT-5.6 Sol (Max) 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-5.6 Sol (Max) scores 22.7 points higher (47.0 vs 24.3) but costs 5.3× as much to run the benchmark ($3465 vs $653; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GPT-5.6 Sol (Max) when you need intelligence above 24.3, and Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) when 24.3 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) | GPT-5.6 Sol (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 24.3 | 47.0 | +93.4% GPT-5.6 Sol (Max) is 93.4% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $652.70 | $3,464.84 | +430.8% GPT-5.6 Sol (Max) is 5.3× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 8.46s | 106.87s | +1163.2% GPT-5.6 Sol (Max) is 1163.2% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $4.00 / $20.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
GPT-5.6 Sol (Max) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Low): 93.4% more intelligence, 430.8% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 1163.2% 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-5.6 Sol (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Low)GPT-5.6 Sol (Max)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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