Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Low)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) by Anthropic or Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) by Anthropic? 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 (Max) scores 13.9 points higher (38.2 vs 24.3) but costs 11× as much to run the benchmark ($6998 vs $653; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) when you need intelligence above 24.3, and Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) when 24.3 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) | Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 38.2 | 24.3 | −36.4% Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) is 36.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,998.25 | $652.70 | −90.7% Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) is 90.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 190.29s | 8.46s | −95.6% Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) is 95.6% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $2.00 / $10.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Max): 36.4% less intelligence, 90.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 95.6% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Max)Claude Sonnet 5 (Low)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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