GPT-5.5 (High) vs gpt-oss-20b (High)
Which is better for the money: GPT-5.5 (High) by OpenAI or gpt-oss-20b (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
GPT-5.5 (High) scores 28.0 points higher (37.0 vs 9.0) but costs 118× as much to run the benchmark ($3411 vs $28.8; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GPT-5.5 (High) when you need intelligence above 9.0, and gpt-oss-20b (High) when 9.0 is enough.
| Metric | GPT-5.5 (High) | gpt-oss-20b (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 37.0 | 9.0 | −75.7% gpt-oss-20b (High) is 75.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $3,410.76 | $28.81 | −99.2% gpt-oss-20b (High) is 99.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 19.56s | 15.12s | −22.7% gpt-oss-20b (High) is 22.7% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $30.0 | $0.05 / $0.22 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
gpt-oss-20b (High) vs GPT-5.5 (High): 75.7% less intelligence, 99.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 22.7% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- GPT-5.5 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
- gpt-oss-20b (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
GPT-5.5 (High)gpt-oss-20b (High)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/gpt-5-5-high/gpt-oss-20b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gpt-5-5-high/gpt-oss-20b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill