BenchLeader

Claude Opus 4.6 vs GPT-5.4

Full profiles: Claude Opus 4.6 (Anthropic) and GPT-5.4 (OpenAI): every benchmark, price and rank.

Updated · Data from 11 sources

As of 25 Oct 2026, Claude Opus 4.6 (high) and GPT-5.4 (xhigh) are neck and neck on quality (62.7 vs 64.7 on the BenchLeader Index, inside the ±3.5 margin of error), and GPT-5.4 (xhigh) costs 1.8× less, which makes it the better buy for most workloads. Pick Claude Opus 4.6 for multimodal (67 vs 61); pick GPT-5.4 for reasoning (69 vs 66).

Which to pick for…

The pick's numbers come first. Category scores on the BenchLeader scale (50 is the average model, 15 points one standard deviation). High confidence means a lead of half a standard deviation or more; under one point is called either.

Use casePickWhyConfidence
CodingGPT-5.465 vs 63 category score; WeirdML 77.7% vs 78.0%Medium
MathsGPT-5.465 vs 64 category score; AIME 2026 99.2% vs 96.7%Medium
ReasoningGPT-5.469 vs 66 category score; ARC-AGI-2 74.0% vs 69.2%Medium
Images and other mediaClaude Opus 4.667 vs 61 category scoreMedium
Chat quality (human preference)–Only Claude Opus 4.6 has an Arena rating (70 category score)Not comparable
Lowest costGPT-5.4$5.63 vs $10.00 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.210 vs $0.400–
Fastest first answerClaude Opus 4.61.2 s (Claude Opus 4.6 (high)) vs 118.0 s (GPT-5.4 (xhigh)) to the first answer token–
High volume on a budgetNeither flagshipA smaller model is usually the better fit: Cheapest good LLMs, Fastest LLMs–

Key differences

  • Claude Opus 4.6 (high) and GPT-5.4 (xhigh) are neck and neck on quality (62.7 vs 64.7, within the ±3.5 margin).
  • Claude Opus 4.6 (high) is stronger in human preference, multimodal.
  • GPT-5.4 (xhigh) is stronger in coding, maths, reasoning, agents & tools, composite, instruction following, knowledge, long context.
  • GPT-5.4 (xhigh) is 1.8× cheaper ($5.63 vs $10.00 per 1M blended).
  • GPT-5.4 (xhigh) streams 2.5× faster (96 vs 39 tokens per second).

At a glance

SpecClaude Opus 4.6GPT-5.4
DeveloperAnthropicOpenAI
Released5 Feb 20265 Mar 2026
Context window (tokens)1,000,0001,050,000
Compared atClaude Opus 4.6 (high)GPT-5.4 (xhigh)
Open weightsNoNo
Price in / out / cached input per 1M$5.00 / $25.00 / $0.500$2.50 / $15.00 / $0.250

Category by category

Category scores on the BenchLeader scale: 50 is the average evaluated model, 15 points is one standard deviation. A gap under one point is called level.

CategoryClaude Opus 4.6 (high)GPT-5.4 (xhigh)Leader
Reasoning65.569.1GPT-5.4
Coding62.764.6GPT-5.4
Agents & tools–63.6not comparable
Maths63.565.2GPT-5.4
Knowledge–59.7not comparable
Instruction following–72.3not comparable
Human preference70.0–not comparable
Multimodal66.661.4Claude Opus 4.6
Long context–66.1not comparable
Composite–73.1not comparable

Where sources disagree

Across the 17 benchmarks both have, Claude Opus 4.6 leads 6, GPT-5.4 leads 11. Independent sources split: Claude Opus 4.6 leads on Arena Text; GPT-5.4 leads on AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2.

Overall indexClaude Opus 4.6 (high)GPT-5.4 (xhigh)Leader
BenchLeader Index62.764.7neck and neck
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.226.4†39.0GPT-5.4
Arena Text15031475†Claude Opus 4.6

Each publisher runs its own tasks, harnesses and effort settings, so their overall verdicts can differ; BenchLeader reconciles them on one scale. † measured at another effort setting of the same model (the publisher did not test the one compared here).

Price, speed and latency

List prices blended at three input tokens per output token. Per-task prices use the token counts on the methodology page; suite cost is what Artificial Analysis paid to run its whole Intelligence Index.

MeasureClaude Opus 4.6 (high)GPT-5.4 (xhigh)
Blended price per 1M tokens$10.00$5.63
Input / output per 1M$5.00 / $25.00$2.50 / $15.00
Cached input per 1M$0.500$0.250
Price per task: chat reply$0.0095$0.0055
Price per task: summarize a 30-page report$0.075$0.039
Price per task: code edit$0.068$0.037
Price per task: agentic coding session$0.400$0.210
Price per task: structured extraction$0.015$0.0080
Output speed39 tok/s96 tok/s
Time to first answer1.2 s118.0 s
Time to a complete answer–123.2 s

Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. Claude Opus 4.6 (high) scores 62.7 and takes 1 s to its first answer token; Claude Opus 4.6 (thinking) scores 62.5 in 1 s, Claude Opus 4.6 scores 62.5 in 1 s. GPT-5.4 (xhigh) scores 64.7 and takes 118 s to its first answer token; GPT-5.4 (low) scores 59.7 in 2 s, GPT-5.4 (high) scores 58.9 in 1 s. Higher effort means more thinking before the answer: better scores, longer waits and more tokens billed. How reasoning effort changes scores and cost.

Every benchmark

123 benchmarks, grouped by category; each name links to the board and its leaders. † measured at another effort setting of the same model, shown for reference and not counted as a win.

MetricPublisherClaude Opus 4.6 (high)GPT-5.4 (xhigh)
BenchLeader IndexBenchLeader62.764.7
Coding scoreBenchLeader62.764.6
Human preference scoreBenchLeader70.0–
Maths scoreBenchLeader63.565.2
Multimodal scoreBenchLeader66.661.4
Reasoning scoreBenchLeader65.569.1
Agents & tools scoreBenchLeader–63.6
Composite scoreBenchLeader–73.1
Instruction following scoreBenchLeader–72.3
Knowledge scoreBenchLeader–59.7
Long context scoreBenchLeader–66.1
Blended price $/MBenchLeader$10.00$5.63
Output speedBenchLeader39 tok/s96 tok/s
Time to first answerBenchLeader1.2 s118.0 s
Context windowBenchLeader1,000,000 tokens1,050,000 tokens
Reasoning
GPQA DiamondEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub90.5%†93.3%
Humanity's Last ExamScale AI / CAIS19.0%†36.2%
SimpleBenchSimpleBench67.6%†–
Arena Hard PromptsArena (LMArena)15301487†
LiveBench 1.0 ReasoningLiveBench88.7%88.1%
GPQA Diamond (AA)Artificial Analysis89.6%†92.0%
Humanity's Last Exam (AA)Artificial Analysis39.9%†43.7%
GPQA Diamond (Vals)Vals AI89.7%†91.7%
Kagi LLM BenchmarkKagi LLM Benchmark72.4%†63.8%†
ARC-AGI-1ARC Prize94.0%93.7%
ARC-AGI-2ARC Prize69.2%74.0%
ARC-AGI-3ARC Prize0.5%†0.2%†
CritPtArtificial Analysis12.6%†23.4%
Chess PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub21.0%†48.0%
Mystery Game PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub15.0%†37.0%
CL-benchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub20.7%†27.9%
CL-bench LifeEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub17.0%21.7%
LMCAEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub55.8%†52.0%
DTBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub91.2%†94.4%
ForecastBenchForecastBench63.4%†63.1%†
Coding
SWE-bench Verified (Epoch)Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub78.7%†76.9%†
SciCodeSciCode–56.6%
WeirdMLWeirdML78.0%77.7%
FrontierCodeCognition26.6%†–
GSO-BenchGSO-Bench41.2%31.4%
Show all 123 benchmarks
MetricPublisherClaude Opus 4.6 (high)GPT-5.4 (xhigh)
Coding
Arena CodingArena (LMArena)15471511†
Arena WebDevArena (LMArena)15461401†
LiveBench 1.0 CodingLiveBench78.2%77.5%
LiveCodeBenchVals AI84.7%†84.1%
SWE-bench (Vals)Vals AI78.2%†78.2%
SWE-Bench ProScale AI SEAL51.9%†59.1%
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)SWE-bench75.6%†–
SWE-bench Verified (any scaffold)SWE-bench75.6%†–
Code MigrationVals AI–35.0%
ProgramBenchVals AI–0.0%
Vibe Code Bench v1.1Vals AI57.6%†67.4%
SWE-Bench Pro (private)Scale AI SEAL51.9%†59.1%
SWE Atlas: Codebase QnAScale AI SEAL33.3%†40.8%
SWE Atlas: RefactoringScale AI SEAL35.6%†44.3%
SWE Atlas: Test WritingScale AI SEAL36.7%†44.4%
MirrorCodeEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–15.6%†
DeepSWE v1.1Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub–51.8%
ALE-BenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub996.5†1607†
AlgoTuneAlgoTune1.51.9†
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis–78.3%
Agents & tools
Terminal-BenchTerminal-Bench79.8%†81.8%†
CybenchCybench93.0%†–
Remote Labor IndexScale AI / CAIS4.2%†–
APEX-AgentsMercor46.3%†52.4%†
LiveBench Agentic CodingLiveBench49.0%53.8%
Terminal-Bench HardArtificial Analysis46.2%†57.6%
τ²-Bench Telecom (AA)Artificial Analysis92.1%†87.1%
MCP AtlasScale AI SEAL76.8%†70.6%
HiL-BenchScale AI SEAL38.3%†9.7%†
τ³-bench Bankingτ²-bench27.3%†39.4%
τ³-Banking (AA)Artificial Analysis–39.6%
APEX-Agents (AA)Artificial Analysis33.0%†33.3%
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1Vals AI–0.0%
SkillsBenchVals AI–51.7%
Terminal-Bench 2.0 (Vals)Vals AI58.4%†58.4%†
DeepResearch BenchDeepResearch Bench55.3%35.1%†
PostTrainBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–19.0%†
METR Time HorizonsMETR78.9%†74.3%
GBAEvalEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub44.1%†45.1%†
Vending-Bench 2Andon Labs8017.6†6144.2†
DeepSearchQAGoogle–63.7%†
Maths
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub66.0%†78.6%
FrontierMath Tier 4Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub26.8%†49.0%
OTIS Mock AIMEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub94.4%†95.3%
ProofBenchVals AI50.0%†56.0%
LiveBench MathematicsLiveBench89.3%94.2%
AIME (Vals)Vals AI95.6%†96.7%
AIME 2026MathArena96.7%99.2%
HMMT February 2026MathArena96.2%97.7%
USAMO 2026MathArena47.0%95.2%
MathArena ApexMathArena34.5%54.2%
Arena MathsArena (LMArena)15171460†
Knowledge
SimpleQA VerifiedEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub47.0%†45.1%
LiveBench 1.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench69.9%79.3%
AA-OmniscienceArtificial Analysis13.7†5.8
MMLU-ProVals AI89.1%†87.5%
LegalBenchVals AI85.3%†86.0%
CorpFinVals AI67.0%†65.3%
TaxEvalVals AI76.0%†74.0%
MedQAVals AI95.4%†96.1%
PRBench FinanceScale AI SEAL53.3%†45.6%†
PRBench LegalScale AI SEAL52.3%†44.4%†
MultiNRCScale AI SEAL57.1%†58.3%†
CaseLaw v2Vals AI62.1%†63.8%
MedCodeVals AI48.2%†41.3%
MedScribeVals AI86.7%†77.5%
DrugDiscoveryBenchScale AI SEAL27.7%†–
EBR-benchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub12.7%†25.4%
AA-Omniscience: accuracyArtificial Analysis47.0%†50.9%
AA-Omniscience: non-hallucinationArtificial Analysis37.2%†8.3%
Global-MMLU-Lite (AA)Artificial Analysis92.2%†–
Instruction following
LiveBench LanguageLiveBench83.3%82.6%
LiveBench Instruction FollowingLiveBench63.3%70.2%
IFBenchArtificial Analysis53.1%†74.0%
MultiChallengeScale AI SEAL37.1%†–
TutorBenchScale AI SEAL53.7%†–
Arena Instruction FollowingArena (LMArena)15111460†
Human preference
Arena TextArena (LMArena)15031465†
EQ-Bench 4EQ-Bench1213†1260†
Arena Creative WritingArena (LMArena)15001435†
Arena Multi-turnArena (LMArena)15161480†
Arena Longer QueriesArena (LMArena)15211477†
Multimodal
Arena VisionArena (LMArena)13161292†
MMMU-ProArtificial Analysis75.4%†78.4%
VISTAScale AI SEAL46.1%†50.9%†
MMMU-Pro (Vals)Vals AI83.9%†87.5%
MortgageTaxVals AI68.5%†68.3%
SAGEVals AI51.6%†43.3%
VTBScale AI SEAL27.5%†29.2%†
Blueprint-Bench 2Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub–27.1%†
Long context
AA-LCRArtificial Analysis78.0%†82.0%
Arena DocumentArena (LMArena)14951470†
Composite
Epoch Capabilities IndexEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub155.7†157.3†
LiveBench 1.0LiveBench74.5%78.0%
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2Artificial Analysis31.9†39.0
Vals RSI IndexVals AI–15.5%
Safety & honesty
FORTRESSScale AI SEAL13.0%†–
MASKScale AI SEAL85.4%†89.7%†

Data as of 2026-10-25. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.

What changed

  • GPT-5.4 (xhigh): 2 new results (Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1, Vals RSI Index).
  • Claude Opus 4.6 (high): BenchLeader Index 60.4 → 62.9.
  • Claude Opus 4.6 (high): 1 new result (USAMO 2026).
  • GPT-5.4 (xhigh): 2 new results (USAMO 2026, τ³-bench Banking).
  • GPT-5.4 (xhigh): 1 score revision.
  • GPT-5.4 (xhigh): 1 new result (SWE Atlas: Codebase QnA).
  • GPT-5.4 (xhigh): 1 score revision.
  • Claude Opus 4.6 (high): BenchLeader Index 61.1 → 60.4.
  • GPT-5.4 (xhigh): BenchLeader Index 64.9 → 64.4.
  • GPT-5.4 (xhigh): 1 new result (SWE Atlas: Test Writing).

Rankings: Best LLM overall · Best LLM for agents · Best cheap LLMs

Claude Opus 4.6 vs GPT-5.4: questions

Is Claude Opus 4.6 better than GPT-5.4?
Claude Opus 4.6 (high) and GPT-5.4 (xhigh) are neck and neck on quality (62.7 vs 64.7, within the ±3.5 margin). The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; the two are within the margin of error as of 2026-10-25, so check the category scores for your use.
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.6 or GPT-5.4, and will that change?
GPT-5.4 is cheaper today: $5.63 against $10.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. No price change has been announced for either.
Is Claude Opus 4.6 better than GPT-5.4 for coding?
GPT-5.4 scores higher in coding (65 vs 63 on the category index, where 50 is average). On WeirdML, the top shared coding benchmark, it is 78.0% for Claude Opus 4.6 against 77.7% for GPT-5.4.
Which is better for long documents?
Both take about 1.1M tokens: Claude Opus 4.6 1,000,000, GPT-5.4 1,050,000.
Which has lower latency?
Claude Opus 4.6 (high) answers first: 1.2 s against 118.0 s to the first answer token, as Artificial Analysis measures it. Reasoning effort drives most of this: a higher setting thinks longer before it answers.
Which is faster, Claude Opus 4.6 or GPT-5.4?
GPT-5.4 streams faster: 96 against 39 output tokens per second.
Do independent benchmarks agree on Claude Opus 4.6 vs GPT-5.4?
Across the 17 benchmarks both have, Claude Opus 4.6 leads 6, GPT-5.4 leads 11. Independent sources split: Claude Opus 4.6 leads on Arena Text; GPT-5.4 leads on AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2.
When was GPT-5.4 released?
GPT-5.4 was released on 5 Mar 2026.