Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) vs GPT-5.6 Sol (Low)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) by Anthropic or GPT-5.6 Sol (Low) by OpenAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick GPT-5.6 Sol (Low)
GPT-5.6 Sol (Low) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium): 19.2% more intelligence, 47.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 10.9% faster end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) | GPT-5.6 Sol (Low) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 28.1 | 33.5 | +19.2% GPT-5.6 Sol (Low) is 19.2% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,218.17 | $637.28 | −47.7% GPT-5.6 Sol (Low) is 47.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 9.27s | 8.26s | −10.9% GPT-5.6 Sol (Low) is 10.9% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $4.00 / $20.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
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 (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium)GPT-5.6 Sol (Low)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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