Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) vs gpt-oss-120b (High)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) by Anthropic or gpt-oss-120b (High) 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
Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) scores 12.7 points higher (24.3 vs 11.6) but costs 5.3× as much to run the benchmark ($653 vs $123; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) when you need intelligence above 11.6, and gpt-oss-120b (High) when 11.6 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) | gpt-oss-120b (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 24.3 | 11.6 | −52.3% gpt-oss-120b (High) is 52.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $652.70 | $122.71 | −81.2% gpt-oss-120b (High) is 81.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 8.68s | 11.29s | +30.1% gpt-oss-120b (High) is 30.1% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.15 / $0.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
gpt-oss-120b (High) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Low): 52.3% less intelligence, 81.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 30.1% 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-oss-120b (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Max) scores 38.10 for $122.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Low)gpt-oss-120b (High)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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