Is GPT-5.6 Sol better than Claude Sonnet 5?

GPT-5.6 Sol (max) leads on quality: 65.4 vs 59.6. The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; GPT-5.6 Sol (max) is ahead overall as of 29 Oct 2026, but check the category scores for your use.

Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-5.6 Sol: which is cheaper, and will that change?

Claude Sonnet 5 is cheaper today: $4.00 against $8.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. No price change has been announced for either.

Is Claude Sonnet 5 or GPT-5.6 Sol better for coding?

GPT-5.6 Sol scores higher in coding (66 vs 61 on the category index, where 50 is average). On SciCode, the top shared coding benchmark, it is 54.3% for Claude Sonnet 5 against 57.1% for GPT-5.6 Sol.

Which is faster, Claude Sonnet 5 or GPT-5.6 Sol?

GPT-5.6 Sol streams faster (85 vs 71 output tokens per second, Artificial Analysis 7-day median).

Is Claude Sonnet 5 or GPT-5.6 Sol better for agents and tool use?

GPT-5.6 Sol scores higher in agentic tasks (67 vs 57 on the category index, where 50 is average).

Which is better for long documents?

GPT-5.6 Sol scores higher on long-context benchmarks (67 vs 63). Both take about 1.1M tokens: Claude Sonnet 5 1,000,000, GPT-5.6 Sol 1,050,000.

Which has lower latency?

Claude Sonnet 5 answers first: 3.3 s against 86.2 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.

When was GPT-5.6 Sol released?

GPT-5.6 Sol was released on 9 Jul 2026.

Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-5.6 Sol

Full profiles: Claude Sonnet 5 (Anthropic) and GPT-5.6 Sol (OpenAI): every benchmark, price and rank.

Updated 28 Oct 2026 · Data from 10 sources

As of 29 Oct 2026, GPT-5.6 Sol is ahead of Claude Sonnet 5 on quality (65.4 vs 59.6 on the BenchLeader Index), but Claude Sonnet 5 is 2.0× cheaper at $4.00 vs $8.00 per 1M tokens blended. GPT-5.6 Sol leads in every category we measure both in. GPT-5.6 Sol streams faster.

Key facts (as of 29 Oct 2026)

Claude Sonnet 5 scores 59.6 on the BenchLeader Index and GPT-5.6 Sol scores 65.4 (BenchLeader, 29 Oct 2026).
Claude Sonnet 5 costs $4.00 per 1M tokens blended (list price, 29 Oct 2026).
GPT-5.6 Sol costs $8.00 per 1M tokens blended (list price, 29 Oct 2026).
GPT-5.6 Sol streams faster than Claude Sonnet 5 (Artificial Analysis, 7-day median, 29 Oct 2026).
Of the 15 benchmarks both models have, GPT-5.6 Sol leads 15 (BenchLeader, 29 Oct 2026).

Claude Sonnet 5 benchmarks high Anthropic

GPT-5.6 Sol benchmarks max OpenAI Open in the comparison tool

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 case	Pick	Why	Confidence
Coding	GPT-5.6 Sol	66 vs 61 category score; SciCode 57.1% vs 54.3%	Medium
Agents & tool use	GPT-5.6 Sol	67 vs 57 category score; AutomationBench 60.1% vs 32.1%	High
Maths	GPT-5.6 Sol	71 vs 65 category score	Medium
Reasoning	Either	66 vs 65 category score; Humanity's Last Exam (AA) 35.7% vs 49.5%	Either
Long documents	GPT-5.6 Sol	67 vs 63 category score; AA-LCR v1.1 84.0% vs 76.7%	Medium
Images and other media	GPT-5.6 Sol	66 vs 61 category score	Medium
Chat quality (human preference)	–	Only Claude Sonnet 5 has an Arena rating (65 category score)	Not comparable
Lowest cost	Claude Sonnet 5	$4.00 vs $8.00 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.160 vs $0.320	–
Fastest first answer	Claude Sonnet 5	3.3 s (Claude Sonnet 5 (high)) vs 86.2 s (GPT-5.6 Sol (max)) to the first answer token	–
High volume on a budget	Neither flagship	A smaller model is usually the better fit: Cheapest good LLMs, Fastest LLMs	–

Key differences

GPT-5.6 Sol (max) leads on quality: 65.4 vs 59.6.
Claude Sonnet 5 (high) is stronger in human preference, reasoning.
GPT-5.6 Sol (max) is stronger in agents & tools, coding, long context, maths, multimodal, instruction following, knowledge.
Claude Sonnet 5 (high) is 2.0× cheaper ($4.00 vs $8.00 per 1M blended).

At a glance

Spec	Claude Sonnet 5	GPT-5.6 Sol
Developer	Anthropic	OpenAI
Released	30 Jun 2026	9 Jul 2026
Context window (tokens)	1,000,000	1,050,000
Compared at	Claude Sonnet 5 (high)	GPT-5.6 Sol (max)
Open weights	No	No
Price in / out / cached input per 1M	$2.00 / $10.00 / $0.200	$4.00 / $20.00 / $0.400

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.

Category	Claude Sonnet 5 (high)	GPT-5.6 Sol (max)	Leader
Reasoning	65.5	65.1	level
Coding	60.5	65.8	GPT-5.6 Sol
Agents & tools	57.4	66.6	GPT-5.6 Sol
Maths	65.3	70.8	GPT-5.6 Sol
Knowledge	–	63.9	not comparable
Instruction following	–	71.1	not comparable
Human preference	64.9	–	not comparable
Multimodal	61.0	66.2	GPT-5.6 Sol
Long context	63.1	66.9	GPT-5.6 Sol

Where sources disagree

Across the 15 benchmarks both have, Claude Sonnet 5 leads 0, GPT-5.6 Sol leads 15. Every overall index that rates both puts GPT-5.6 Sol ahead.

Overall index	Claude Sonnet 5 (high)	GPT-5.6 Sol (max)	Leader
BenchLeader Index	59.6	65.4	GPT-5.6 Sol
Arena Text	1462	1485†	GPT-5.6 Sol

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.

Measure	Claude Sonnet 5 (high)	GPT-5.6 Sol (max)
Blended price per 1M tokens	$4.00	$8.00
Input / output per 1M	$2.00 / $10.00	$4.00 / $20.00
Cached input per 1M	$0.200	$0.400
Price per task: chat reply	$0.0038	$0.0076
Price per task: summarize a 30-page report	$0.030	$0.060
Price per task: code edit	$0.027	$0.054
Price per task: agentic coding session	$0.160	$0.320
Price per task: structured extraction	$0.0060	$0.012
Output speed	71 tok/s	85 tok/s
Time to first answer	3.3 s	86.2 s
Time to a complete answer	10.3 s	92.1 s

Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. Claude Sonnet 5 (high) scores 59.6 and takes 3 s to its first answer token; Claude Sonnet 5 scores 55.8 in 2 s, Claude Sonnet 5 (xhigh) scores 55.6 in 13 s. GPT-5.6 Sol (max) scores 65.4 and takes 86 s to its first answer token; GPT-5.6 Sol (xhigh) scores 64.4 in 22 s, GPT-5.6 Sol (high) scores 63.6 in 11 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

129 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.

Metric	Publisher	Claude Sonnet 5 (high)	GPT-5.6 Sol (max)
BenchLeader Index	BenchLeader	59.6	65.4
Agents & tools score	BenchLeader	57.4	66.6
Coding score	BenchLeader	60.5	65.8
Human preference score	BenchLeader	64.9	–
Long context score	BenchLeader	63.1	66.9
Maths score	BenchLeader	65.3	70.8
Multimodal score	BenchLeader	61.0	66.2
Reasoning score	BenchLeader	65.5	65.1
Instruction following score	BenchLeader	–	71.1
Knowledge score	BenchLeader	–	63.9
Blended price $/M	BenchLeader	$4.00	$8.00
Output speed	BenchLeader	71 tok/s	85 tok/s
Time to first answer	BenchLeader	3.3 s	86.2 s
Context window	BenchLeader	1,000,000 tokens	1,050,000 tokens
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	90.5%†	93.5%
SimpleBench	SimpleBench	60.6%†	64.8%†
Arena Hard Prompts	Arena (LMArena)	1490	1512†
LiveBench 1.0 Reasoning	LiveBench	88.7%†	91.7%
GPQA Diamond (AA)	Artificial Analysis	91.1%†	94.1%
Humanity's Last Exam (AA)	Artificial Analysis	35.7%	49.5%
GPQA Diamond (Vals)	Vals AI	88.9%†	95.2%
EnigmaEval	Scale AI SEAL	–	37.1%†
Kagi LLM Benchmark	Kagi LLM Benchmark	–	67.0%†
ARC-AGI-1	ARC Prize	–	96.5%
ARC-AGI-2	ARC Prize	–	92.5%
ARC-AGI-3	ARC Prize	–	7.8%
CritPt	Artificial Analysis	15.1%	32.3%
CritPt v2 hard subset (AA)	Artificial Analysis	–	56.0%
MysteryMechanism	Vals AI	–	33.3%
Chess Puzzles	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	34.0%†	59.0%
Mystery Game Puzzles	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	16.0%†	58.0%
LMCA	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	50.0%	58.4%
DTBench	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	84.5%	95.5%
ForecastBench	ForecastBench	63.5%†	65.5%
BTF-3	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	14.2%†	13.7%
Coding
SciCode	SciCode	54.3%	57.1%
WeirdML	WeirdML	68.8%	87.0%
FrontierCode	Cognition	42.7%†	47.5%†
GSO-Bench	GSO-Bench	37.3%†	76.5%†

Show all 129 benchmarks

Metric	Publisher	Claude Sonnet 5 (high)	GPT-5.6 Sol (max)
Coding
Arena Coding	Arena (LMArena)	1520	1534†
Arena WebDev	Arena (LMArena)	1540	1616†
LiveBench 1.0 Coding	LiveBench	80.7%†	83.9%
LiveCodeBench	Vals AI	82.4%†	82.6%
IOI	Vals AI	45.0%†	91.2%
SWE-bench (Vals)	Vals AI	79.6%†	96.2%
Code Migration	Vals AI	44.4%†	52.9%
ProgramBench	Vals AI	0.0%†	1.5%
Vibe Code Bench 1-100	Vals AI	13.8%†	20.0%
Vibe Code Bench v1.1	Vals AI	81.3%†	80.5%
SWE Atlas: Codebase QnA	Scale AI SEAL	–	46.0%†
SWE Atlas: Test Writing	Scale AI SEAL	–	45.9%†
MirrorCode	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	–	20.0%†
Surface Evolver Bench	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	60.0%†	93.1%†
DeepSWE v1.1	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	48.2%	72.7%
CursorBench	Cursor	30.8%	41.7%
ALE-Bench	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	1463.1	2176.9
FrontierSWE	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	–	32.2%
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA)	Artificial Analysis	5.0%	39.9%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (AA)	Artificial Analysis	80.5%†	88.0%
Startrise Frontend	Startrise	66.6%†	66.2%†
Agents & tools
Terminal-Bench	Terminal-Bench	12.4%†	37.3%
OSWorld-Verified 2.0	OSWorld	–	27.3%
APEX-Agents	Mercor	54.5%†	–
Arena Agent	Arena (LMArena)	3.8	6.1†
LiveBench Agentic Coding	LiveBench	59.4%†	56.2%
Terminal-Bench Hard	Artificial Analysis	–	65.9%
τ²-Bench Telecom (AA)	Artificial Analysis	–	85.1%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals)	Vals AI	74.5%†	85.8%
HiL-Bench	Scale AI SEAL	–	32.3%†
τ³-bench Banking	τ²-bench	–	46.9%†
τ³-Banking (AA)	Artificial Analysis	37.3%†	44.3%
ITBench SRE (AA)	Artificial Analysis	–	56.2%
Analyst Agent (AA)	Artificial Analysis	46.3%†	47.5%
CUA-bench	Vals AI	–	8.3%
CyberBench	Vals AI	61.9%†	76.3%
Finance Agent v2	Vals AI	53.9%†	53.8%
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1	Vals AI	5.0%†	2.5%
Legal Research Bench	Vals AI	41.8%†	48.1%
SkillsBench	Vals AI	46.5%†	54.1%
SREBench	Vals AI	0.4%†	30.5%
Tax Agent Bench	Vals AI	29.4%†	31.1%
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals)	Vals AI	10.6%†	37.9%
Terminal-Bench Science	Vals AI	5.7%†	20.0%
Time Horizon Index: KSP	Vals AI	–	23.8%
Web Search Index	Vals AI	–	43.6%
Arena Search	Arena (LMArena)	–	1258†
BALROG	BALROG	–	60.0%
PostTrainBench	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	–	36.2%
GBAEval	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	65.3%†	52.6%†
Vending-Bench 2	Andon Labs	6377.7†	9619.4†
AutomationBench	Artificial Analysis	32.1%	60.1%
GDP.pdf (AA)	Artificial Analysis	9.4%	27.2%
EnterpriseOps-Gym	Artificial Analysis	43.9%†	42.9%
AA-Briefcase v1.1	Artificial Analysis	1356†	1478
Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA)	Artificial Analysis	–	22.4%
FACTS Search	Google	–	88.5%†
Maths
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	65.6%†	89.1%
FrontierMath Tier 4	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	29.3%†	82.9%
OTIS Mock AIME	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	94.7%†	100.0%
ProofBench	Vals AI	77.0%†	83.0%
LiveBench Mathematics	LiveBench	92.9%†	96.2%
Arena Maths	Arena (LMArena)	1473	1496†
Knowledge
SimpleQA Verified	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	32.9%†	69.7%
LiveBench 1.0 Data Analysis	LiveBench	71.7%†	79.8%
MMLU-Pro	Vals AI	87.5%†	89.1%
LegalBench	Vals AI	83.9%†	87.0%
CorpFin	Vals AI	67.0%†	64.4%
TaxEval	Vals AI	75.6%†	74.8%
PRBench Finance	Scale AI SEAL	–	50.5%
PRBench Legal	Scale AI SEAL	–	50.5%
BioMysteryBench	Vals AI	–	71.1%
Excel Modeling Benchmark	Vals AI	66.3%†	72.3%
MedCode	Vals AI	47.5%†	44.0%
MedScribe	Vals AI	76.0%†	85.2%
Public Benefits Bench v1.1	Vals AI	66.0%†	66.5%
DrugDiscoveryBench	Scale AI SEAL	50.0%†	56.5%
EBR-bench	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	–	44.8%
GDP.pdf	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	–	30.7%
Instruction following
LiveBench Language	LiveBench	75.0%†	87.7%
LiveBench Instruction Following	LiveBench	63.9%†	71.8%
IFBench	Artificial Analysis	–	72.7%
Arena Instruction Following	Arena (LMArena)	1466	1491†
Human preference
Arena Text	Arena (LMArena)	1462	1485†
EQ-Bench 4	EQ-Bench	1221†	1236†
Arena Creative Writing	Arena (LMArena)	1435	1470†
Arena Multi-turn	Arena (LMArena)	1473	1490†
Arena Longer Queries	Arena (LMArena)	1481	1499†
Multimodal
Arena Vision	Arena (LMArena)	1273	1281†
MMMU-Pro	Artificial Analysis	77.3%†	83.4%
MMMU-Pro (Vals)	Vals AI	83.0%†	88.8%
MortgageTax	Vals AI	70.0%†	67.3%
Blueprint-Bench 2	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	24.9%†	33.6%†
Long context
AA-LCR v1.1	Artificial Analysis	76.7%	84.0%
Arena Document	Arena (LMArena)	1476	1489†
MLCR	Artificial Analysis	4.4%	30.0%
Composite
Epoch Capabilities Index	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	156.9†	162.8†
LiveBench 1.0	LiveBench	76.0%†	81.0%
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2	Artificial Analysis	31.7	47.0
AA Progress Index v1	Artificial Analysis	296.8	331.5
Vals RSI Index	Vals AI	–	23.9%
Vals Science Index	Vals AI	–	41.5%
Vals Multimodal Index	Vals AI	68.8%†	72.6%
Safety & honesty
FORTRESS	Scale AI SEAL	–	20.1%†

Data as of 2026-10-29. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.

What changed

28 Oct 2026 Claude Sonnet 5 (high): 1 new result (AA Progress Index v1).
28 Oct 2026 GPT-5.6 Sol (max): 2 new results (AA Progress Index v1, CritPt v2 hard subset (AA)).
25 Oct 2026 GPT-5.6 Sol (max): 1 new result (AA-Briefcase v1.1).
23 Oct 2026 GPT-5.6 Sol (max): 3 new results (Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1, Vals RSI Index, Vals Science Index).
21 Oct 2026 Claude Sonnet 5 (high): BenchLeader Index 60.0 → 59.5.
21 Oct 2026 Claude Sonnet 5 (high): 1 new result (MLCR).
21 Oct 2026 GPT-5.6 Sol (max): 1 score revision.
20 Oct 2026 Claude Sonnet 5 (high): 1 score revision.
20 Oct 2026 GPT-5.6 Sol (max): 1 new result (ForecastBench).
18 Oct 2026 Claude Sonnet 5 (high): 2 new results (AutomationBench, GDP.pdf (AA)).

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