Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) vs GPT-5.6 Sol (Max)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) 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 18.9 points higher (47.0 vs 28.1) but costs 2.8× as much to run the benchmark ($3465 vs $1218; flagship vs premium cost classes). Pick GPT-5.6 Sol (Max) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium).
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) | GPT-5.6 Sol (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 28.1 | 47.0 | +67.3% GPT-5.6 Sol (Max) is 67.3% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,218.17 | $3,464.84 | +184.4% GPT-5.6 Sol (Max) is 2.8× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 9.01s | 92.19s | +923.2% GPT-5.6 Sol (Max) is 923.2% 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 (Medium): 67.3% more intelligence, 184.4% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 923.2% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- 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 (Medium)GPT-5.6 Sol (Max)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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