Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) vs GPT-5 mini (High)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) by Anthropic or GPT-5 mini (High) 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 21.4 points higher (38.2 vs 16.8) but costs 37× as much to run the benchmark ($6998 vs $189; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) when you need intelligence above 16.8, and GPT-5 mini (High) when 16.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) | GPT-5 mini (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 38.2 | 16.8 | −56.0% GPT-5 mini (High) is 56.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,998.25 | $188.66 | −97.3% GPT-5 mini (High) is 97.3% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 182.35s | 58.72s | −67.8% GPT-5 mini (High) is 67.8% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.25 / $2.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
GPT-5 mini (High) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Max): 56.0% less intelligence, 97.3% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 67.8% 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 mini (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh) scores 41.20 for $158.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Max)GPT-5 mini (High)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5/gpt-5-mini · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5/gpt-5-mini?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill