Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) vs GPT-5.5 (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) by Anthropic or GPT-5.5 (Medium) 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 (Max) scores 4.4 points higher (38.2 vs 33.8) but costs 3.3× as much to run the benchmark ($6998 vs $2095; both flagship class). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) when you need intelligence above 33.8, and GPT-5.5 (Medium) when 33.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) | GPT-5.5 (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 38.2 | 33.8 | −11.5% GPT-5.5 (Medium) is 11.5% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,998.25 | $2,095.12 | −70.1% GPT-5.5 (Medium) is 70.1% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 184.22s | 11.17s | −93.9% GPT-5.5 (Medium) is 93.9% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $5.00 / $30.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
GPT-5.5 (Medium) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Max): 11.5% less intelligence, 70.1% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 93.9% 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.
- GPT-5.5 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Max)GPT-5.5 (Medium)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5/gpt-5-5-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5/gpt-5-5-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill