Claude Opus 4.1 vs Claude Sonnet 5.5
Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads Claude Opus 4.1 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 56.0 to 22.8, and Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs 7.5x less per output token ($10.00 vs $75.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 45 benchmarks have a result for both.
vs boards won of 45 shared
Claude Opus 4.1 or Claude Sonnet 5.5: which to pick
Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 has a coding score, 87.3 on the Vibe Coding Index; Claude Opus 4.1 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Compare them on price, context and the boards below.
Model AClaude Opus 4.1AnthropicNot benchmarked1 independent benchmarkNo cost per solved taskModel BClaude Sonnet 5.5Anthropic87.3/1005 independent benchmarksNo cost per solved task
- Shared results
- 45
- Claude Opus 4.1 only
- 28
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 only
- 51
- Like-for-like categories
- 7 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads, 56.0 against 22.8.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Claude Opus 4.1 has a GPQA Diamond result, 76.3%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only Claude Opus 4.1 has a AIME result, 78.2%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Claude Opus 4.1 has a MMLU Pro result, 87.9%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads, 1326 against 1176.
Same board, both measured
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 has a Vals Index result, 70.8%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Claude Sonnet 5.5 takes 1M tokens against 200K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Claude Opus 4.1 $0.052, Claude Sonnet 5.5 $0.0070 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Claude Opus 4.1 not benchmarked, Claude Sonnet 5.5 87.3 from 5 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Math, 41.8 points apart on average over 5 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- FrontierMath, tier 4: Claude Opus 4.1 2.4% against Claude Sonnet 5.5 80.5%, 78.0 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Claude Opus 4.1 $75.00 against Claude Sonnet 5.5 $10.00 per million output tokens, 7.5x apart.
- Context window
- Claude Opus 4.1 takes 200K tokens, Claude Sonnet 5.5 1M.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Claude Opus 4.1 | Bars | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 5 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 2 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 5 | ||
| Math | 0 | 5 | ||
| Knowledge | 0 | 5 | ||
| Web design | 0 | 6 | ||
| General | 0 | 17 | ||
| All shared boards | 0 | 45 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index05
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.1 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | Not measured | 94.7% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1390 | 1768 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 66.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 64.1% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 92.4% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | Not measured | 69.8% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 6.5% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | Not measured | 83.1% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 83.2% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SWE-bench Multimodal (Vals AI) | Not measured | 58.3% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 59.6% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 61.0% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench | 38.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| FrontierCode | Not measured | 52.1% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| FrontierSWE | Not measured | 61.9% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| WeirdML | 45.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| Cybench | 42.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| ALE-Bench | Not measured | 1819.1 | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1479 | 1513 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1456 | 1504 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1817 | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1399 | 1741 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | Not measured | 1737 | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SciCode | 4.6% | 13.8% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.1 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 22.8 | 56.0 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 144.1 | 166.2 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index21 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.1 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | Not measured | 1305 | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | Not measured | 1260 | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: spreadsheets | Not measured | 1260 | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LiveBench research | Not measured | 83.6% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LiveBench browser | Not measured | 84.0% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | Not measured | 78.8% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 30.1% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | Not measured | 58.1% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 42.0% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 48.1% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 10.4% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 75.7% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| BioMysteryBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 81.1% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | Not measured | 47.1% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Vals Science Index | Not measured | 59.1% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| APEX-Agents | Not measured | 75.5% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| METR time horizons | 66.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| GDPval | 43.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| DeepResearch Bench | 48.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| SpireClimb | Not measured | 1.3% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | Not measured | $11,165 | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 20 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index05
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.1 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 76.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| LiveBench reasoning | Not measured | 91.6% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| MysteryMechanism (Vals AI) | Not measured | 49.1% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 77.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 55.0% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 77.3% | 95.6% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| SimpleBench | 60.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| Chess puzzles | Not measured | 59.0% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 21.0% | 65.0% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| EBR-bench | 7.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| VPCT | 35.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1442 | 1494 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1438 | 1531 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1451 | 1502 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | Not measured | 1329 | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | Not measured | 1331 | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index05
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.1 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 78.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| MATH 500 (Vals AI) | 95.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | 94.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 68.9% | 100.0% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 12.6% | 88.8% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 2.4% | 80.5% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| ProofBench | Not measured | 100.0% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1431 | 1497 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1434 | 1510 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index05
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.1 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 87.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 83.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 73.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 61.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 93.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 47.2% | 52.9% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| SimpleQA Verified | Not measured | 46.5% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1422 | 1483 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1416 | 1464 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1421 | 1483 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1406 | 1468 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| FACTS Benchmark Suite | 40.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index06
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.1 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1176 | 1326 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1162 | 1368 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1171 | 1471 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1166 | 1392 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1152 | 1445 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1170 | 1364 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1152 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1167 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| LiveBench design | Not measured | 85.0% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index017
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.1 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | Not measured | 70.8% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LiveBench data analysis | Not measured | 59.5% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 67.2% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 31.4% | 51.8% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 73.9% | 91.1% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | Not measured | 82.7% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| DTBench | 80.0% | 97.3% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMCA | 37.1% | 68.3% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Creative writing (Lech Mazur) | 84.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| Furniture assembly | Not measured | 75.0% | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1419 | 1473 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1435 | 1492 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1412 | 1467 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena Vision | Not measured | 1287 | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1433 | 1484 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1405 | 1456 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1427 | 1535 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: German | 1413 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1377 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1381 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1433 | 1499 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1448 | 1451 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1422 | 1454 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1413 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1444 | 1465 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1455 | 1495 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1418 | 1474 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1398 | 1461 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena Vision: English | Not measured | 1289 | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | Not measured | 1297 | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | Not measured | 1242 | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.1 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Claude Opus 4.1$0.052Fits in one request
Claude Sonnet 5.5$0.0070Fits in one request
Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Claude Opus 4.1$0.975Fits in one request
Claude Sonnet 5.5$0.130Fits in one request
Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Claude Opus 4.1$3.75Exceeds the context window
Claude Sonnet 5.5$0.500Fits in one request
Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Anthropic Claude Opus 4.1 | Anthropic Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | Anthropic |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | August 5, 2025 | September 28, 2026 |
| Context window | 200K | 1M |
| Input $/Mtok | $15.00 | $2.00 |
| Output $/Mtok | $75.00 | $10.00 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | 87.3 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 1 | 5 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Claude Opus 4.1 better than Claude Sonnet 5.5 for coding?
Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 has a coding score, 87.3 on the Vibe Coding Index; Claude Opus 4.1 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Compare them on price, context and the boards below.
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.1 or Claude Sonnet 5.5?
Claude Opus 4.1 costs $15.00 per million input tokens and $75.00 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs $2.00 and $10.00. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Opus 4.1 or Claude Sonnet 5.5?
Claude Sonnet 5.5, with 1M tokens against 200K.
How many benchmarks is the Claude Opus 4.1 vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 comparison based on?
45 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Claude Opus 4.1's coding index rests on 1 independent benchmark and Claude Sonnet 5.5's on 5. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.