Claude Opus 4.8 vs GPT-5.5

Benchmarks, API pricing and specs, head to head. Data updated 2026-06-10.

Claude Opus 4.8

Anthropic · May 2026

Anthropic's flagship Opus with adaptive thinking, effort controls and a 1M context — 88.6% on SWE-bench Verified at $5/$25.

GPT-5.5

OpenAI · Apr 2026

77.2

OpenAI's flagship reasoning model with a 1M-token context window, built for hard coding, science and long-horizon agentic work.

The verdict

Claude Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5 split the 2 benchmarks they share evenly (1–1), so capability alone won't settle this one. Claude Opus 4.8 is about 1.1x cheaper per blended million tokens (3:1 input:output mix).

Benchmark head-to-head 11

SWE-bench Verified
88.6%82.6%
Claude Opus 4.8GPT-5.5
GPQA Diamond
~91%~92%
Claude Opus 4.8GPT-5.5

Specs & pricing

Claude Opus 4.8GPT-5.5
modhub Index77.2
Input price / 1M$5$5
Output price / 1M$25$30
Context window1M1M
Max output64K128K
Open weightsnono
Reasoning modelyesyes
Multimodal inputtext, imagetext, image
Knowledge cutoffMar 2026Jan 2026
ReleasedMay 2026Apr 2026
Example monthly cost*$87.50$95.00

* 10M input + 1.5M output tokens per month at list prices, no caching. Green = better value on that row.

Frequently asked questions

Which is better, Claude Opus 4.8 or GPT-5.5?
Claude Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5 split the 2 benchmarks they share evenly (1–1), so capability alone won't settle this one. Claude Opus 4.8 is about 1.1x cheaper per blended million tokens (3:1 input:output mix).
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.8 or GPT-5.5?
Claude Opus 4.8 costs $5/$25 per million input/output tokens, while GPT-5.5 costs $5/$30. For a typical workload of 10M input and 1.5M output tokens per month, that's $87.50 versus $95.00.
Which model is better for coding, Claude Opus 4.8 or GPT-5.5?
On SWE-bench Verified — the standard agentic-coding benchmark — Claude Opus 4.8 scores 88.6% versus 82.6% for GPT-5.5, making Claude Opus 4.8 the stronger pick for coding agents.

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