Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) vs GPT-5.6 Terra (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) by Anthropic or GPT-5.6 Terra (Xhigh) by OpenAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-27.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
GPT-5.6 Terra (Xhigh) scores 13.7 points higher (38.0 vs 24.3) but costs 1.8× as much to run the benchmark ($1187 vs $653; both premium class). Pick GPT-5.6 Terra (Xhigh) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude Sonnet 5 (Low).
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) | GPT-5.6 Terra (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 24.3 | 38.0 | +56.4% GPT-5.6 Terra (Xhigh) is 56.4% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $652.70 | $1,186.77 | +81.8% GPT-5.6 Terra (Xhigh) is 81.8% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 9.07s | 33.63s | +270.8% GPT-5.6 Terra (Xhigh) is 270.8% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $2.00 / $12.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
GPT-5.6 Terra (Xhigh) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Low): 56.4% more intelligence, 81.8% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 270.8% 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 Terra (Xhigh) 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-5.6 Terra (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-low/gpt-5-6-terra-xhigh · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-low/gpt-5-6-terra-xhigh?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill