Skip to main content
BenchLM
Advertise

Model comparison

Claude Opus 4.5 vs Claude Sonnet 4.5

Data verified

Head-to-head evidence from 10 shared benchmark results across 5 categories. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.

64.22/100
Margin
10.6pts
← winning
53.61/100
3 category wins2 category wins

Public leaderboard positions: Claude Opus 4.5 #34 (Supported); Claude Sonnet 4.5 #96 (Estimated). Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.

Evidence parity. Claude Opus 4.5 and Claude Sonnet 4.5 share 10 comparable benchmark results. 5 of 8 categories are comparable. 49 results are unique to Claude Opus 4.5; 2 to Claude Sonnet 4.5.

Updated July 20, 2026
Shared results
10
Claude Opus 4.5 only
49
Claude Sonnet 4.5 only
2
Comparable categories
5 / 8

Pick Claude Opus 4.5 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Claude Sonnet 4.5 only becomes the better choice if knowledge is the priority or you want the cheaper token bill.

Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 10 shared benchmark results across 5 evidence categories; 5 of 8 categories currently have scoreable aggregates for both models. Treat the verdict as directional until coverage is more balanced.

Why this result

Claude Opus 4.5 is clearly ahead on the BenchAlign aggregate, 64.22 to 53.61. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Claude Opus 4.5's sharpest advantage is in reasoning, where it averages 64.4 against 13.6. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is Terminal-Bench 2.0, 59.3% to 50%. Claude Sonnet 4.5 does hit back in knowledge, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Claude Opus 4.5 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $5.00 input / $25.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $3.00 input / $15.00 output per 1M tokens for Claude Sonnet 4.5.

Category breakdown

Exact category averages are shown below. Not measured means BenchLM does not have enough sourced public coverage for that model and category.

Category scores and score margins for Claude Opus 4.5 and Claude Sonnet 4.5
CategoryClaude Opus 4.5ΔClaude Sonnet 4.5
ReasoningClaude Opus 4.564.4Margin← 50.8Claude Sonnet 4.513.6
MathClaude Opus 4.557.5Margin← 46.3Claude Sonnet 4.511.2
KnowledgeClaude Opus 4.558.1Margin→ 25.3Claude Sonnet 4.583.4
AgenticClaude Opus 4.562.6Margin← 7.2Claude Sonnet 4.555.4
CodingClaude Opus 4.571.7Margin→ 5.5Claude Sonnet 4.577.2
MultilingualClaude Opus 4.585.7MarginNo overlapClaude Sonnet 4.5Not measured
MultimodalClaude Opus 4.569.9MarginNo overlapClaude Sonnet 4.5Not measured
Inst. FollowingClaude Opus 4.569.5MarginNo overlapClaude Sonnet 4.5Not measured

Decisive benchmark drivers

The largest measured benchmark gaps in this matchup, with exact reported values.

More
A · Claude Opus 4.5B · Claude Sonnet 4.5

  1. Terminal-Bench 2.0

    Agentic
    Source ↗
    A 59.3%B 50%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.5Δ 9.3
    Terminal-Bench 2.0: Claude Opus 4.5 scored 59.3%; Claude Sonnet 4.5 scored 50%. Claude Opus 4.5 wins this benchmark.

  2. FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)

    Math
    Source ↗
    A 20.690%B 13.495%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.5Δ 7.2
    FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3): Claude Opus 4.5 scored 20.690%; Claude Sonnet 4.5 scored 13.495%. Claude Opus 4.5 wins this benchmark.

  3. OSWorld-Verified

    Agentic
    Source ↗
    A 66.3%B 61.4%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.5Δ 4.9
    OSWorld-Verified: Claude Opus 4.5 scored 66.3%; Claude Sonnet 4.5 scored 61.4%. Claude Opus 4.5 wins this benchmark.

  4. SWE-bench Verified

    Coding
    Source ↗
    A 80.9%B 77.2%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.5Δ 3.7
    SWE-bench Verified: Claude Opus 4.5 scored 80.9%; Claude Sonnet 4.5 scored 77.2%. Claude Opus 4.5 wins this benchmark.

  5. GPQA

    Knowledge
    Source ↗
    A 87%B 83.4%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.5Δ 3.6
    GPQA: Claude Opus 4.5 scored 87%; Claude Sonnet 4.5 scored 83.4%. Claude Opus 4.5 wins this benchmark.

Operational comparison

Runtime and commercial metrics are compared only when both models have a complete sourced value.

MetricClaude Opus 4.5Claude Sonnet 4.5Comparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokensClaude Opus 4.5$5 input / $25 outputClaude Sonnet 4.5$3 input / $15 outputClaude Sonnet 4.5 has the lower combined listed price.
Generation speedtokens per secondClaude Opus 4.546 tok/sClaude Sonnet 4.5Not availableA complete speed comparison is not available.
First-answer latencyseconds to first tokenClaude Opus 4.51.01 sClaude Sonnet 4.5Not availableA complete latency comparison is not available.
Context windowmaximum listed tokensClaude Opus 4.5200KClaude Sonnet 4.5200KListed context windows are equal.

Benchmark Deep Dive

AgenticClaude Opus 4.5 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.5Claude Sonnet 4.5Result
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 59.3%50%Claude Opus 4.5 leads
OSWorld-VerifiedSource 66.3%61.4%Claude Opus 4.5 leads
OSWorldSource 66.3%—Not comparable
Claw-EvalSource 59.6%—Not comparable
QwenClawBenchSource 52.3%—Not comparable
τ³-bench resultsSource 70.2%—Not comparable
VITA-BenchSource 23.3%17.0%Claude Opus 4.5 leads
DeepPlanningSource 26.4%—Not comparable
ToolathlonSource 43.5%—Not comparable
MCP AtlasSource 42.3%—Not comparable
MCP-TasksSource 71.8%—Not comparable
WideResearchSource 76.4%—Not comparable
CyberGymSource 50.6%—Not comparable
τ²-bench resultsSource 86.3%—Not comparable
Gert LabsSource 64.23%48.51%Claude Opus 4.5 leads
JobBenchSource 32.3%27.7%Claude Opus 4.5 leads
CodingClaude Sonnet 4.5 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.5Claude Sonnet 4.5Result
SWE-bench VerifiedSource 80.9%77.2%Claude Opus 4.5 leads
LiveCodeBench v6Source 84.8%—Not comparable
SWE-bench ProSource 57.1%—Not comparable
SWE MultilingualSource 77.5%—Not comparable
NL2RepoSource 43.2%—Not comparable
AA-SciCodeSource 47.0%—Not comparable
ReasoningClaude Opus 4.5 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.5Claude Sonnet 4.5Result
LongBench v2Source 64.4%—Not comparable
AI-NeedleSource 74%—Not comparable
AA-LCRSource 65.3%—Not comparable
CritPtSource 0.3%—Not comparable
ARC-AGI-2Source —13.6%Not comparable
KnowledgeClaude Sonnet 4.5 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.5Claude Sonnet 4.5Result
GPQASource 87%83.4%Claude Opus 4.5 leads
SuperGPQASource 70.6%—Not comparable
MMLU-ProSource 89.5%—Not comparable
MMLU-ReduxSource 96.6%—Not comparable
C-EvalSource 92.2%—Not comparable
HLESource 30.8%—Not comparable
Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource 34.7%—Not comparable
AA-GPQA DiamondSource 81.0%—Not comparable
AA-HLESource 12.9%—Not comparable
AA-Omniscience IndexSource -3.9%—Not comparable
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource 40.7%—Not comparable
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource 75.4%—Not comparable
AA MMLU-ProSource 88.9%—Not comparable
MathClaude Opus 4.5 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.5Claude Sonnet 4.5Result
AIME26Source 95.1%—Not comparable
HMMT Feb 2025Source 92.9%—Not comparable
HMMT Nov 2025Source 93.3%—Not comparable
HMMT Feb 2026Source 85.3%—Not comparable
MMAnswerBenchSource 84.0%—Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)Source 20.690%13.495%Claude Opus 4.5 leads
FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)Source 4.167%4.167%Tie
AIME 2025Source —87%Not comparable
Multilingual
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.5Claude Sonnet 4.5Result
MMLU-ProXSource 85.7%—Not comparable
NOVA-63Source 56.7%—Not comparable
Multimodal
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.5Claude Sonnet 4.5Result
MMMU-ProSource 70.6%—Not comparable
MathVisionSource 74.3%—Not comparable
CharXivSource 68.5%—Not comparable
VideoMMMUSource 84.4%—Not comparable
ScreenSpot ProSource 45.7%—Not comparable
V*Source 67.0%—Not comparable
AA-MMMU-ProSource 71.2%—Not comparable
Design Arena WebsiteSource 12791222Claude Opus 4.5 leads
Inst. Following
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.5Claude Sonnet 4.5Result
IFEvalSource 90.9%—Not comparable
IFBenchSource 58%—Not comparable
AA-IFBenchSource 43.0%—Not comparable
Frequently Asked Questions (6)

Which is better, Claude Opus 4.5 or Claude Sonnet 4.5?

Claude Opus 4.5 is ahead on BenchLM's BenchAlign leaderboard, 64.22 to 53.61. The biggest single separator in this matchup is Terminal-Bench 2.0, where the scores are 59.3% and 50%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Claude Opus 4.5 or Claude Sonnet 4.5?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 83.4 versus 58.1. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Claude Opus 4.5 or Claude Sonnet 4.5?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 77.2 versus 71.7. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Claude Opus 4.5 or Claude Sonnet 4.5?

Claude Opus 4.5 has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 57.5 versus 11.2. Inside this category, FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3) is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Claude Opus 4.5 or Claude Sonnet 4.5?

Claude Opus 4.5 has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 64.4 versus 13.6. Claude Sonnet 4.5 stays close enough that the answer can still flip depending on your workload.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Claude Opus 4.5 or Claude Sonnet 4.5?

Claude Opus 4.5 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 62.6 versus 55.4. Inside this category, Gert Labs is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Related Comparisons

Explore More

Anthropic Compare Pricing Methodology Find Your Best LLM Overall Rankings
Last updated: July 20, 2026

Choose a model with this week’s evidence

Join 2,000+ readers for ranking moves, pricing changes, and the claims that still need proof.

One email each week. Unsubscribe anytime.