Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) vs GPT-5.6 Terra (Non-reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) by Anthropic or GPT-5.6 Terra (Non-reasoning) by OpenAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) scores 7.3 points higher (28.1 vs 20.8) but costs 4.8× as much to run the benchmark ($1218 vs $256; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) when you need intelligence above 20.8, and GPT-5.6 Terra (Non-reasoning) when 20.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) | GPT-5.6 Terra (Non-reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 28.1 | 20.8 | −26.0% GPT-5.6 Terra (Non-re… is 26.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,218.17 | $255.77 | −79.0% GPT-5.6 Terra (Non-re… is 79.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 9.30s | 5.11s | −45.1% GPT-5.6 Terra (Non-re… is 45.1% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $2.00 / $12.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
GPT-5.6 Terra (Non-reasoning) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium): 26.0% less intelligence, 79.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 45.1% faster 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 Terra (Non-reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium)GPT-5.6 Terra (Non-reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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