Compare/GPT-5 (low) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)

GPT-5 (low)vsClaude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)

Side-by-side comparison of pricing, 12 benchmarks, and generation speed.

OpenAI

GPT-5 (low)

Input
$1.25/M
Output
$10/M
Speed
78 tok/s
TTFT
10.01s
Anthropic

Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)

Input
$2/M
Output
$10/M
Speed
87 tok/s
TTFT
134.45s

Winner by Category

Cheaper
GPT-5 (low)
Faster (tok/s)
Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)
Lower Latency
GPT-5 (low)
Benchmarks (7-5)
GPT-5 (low)

Pricing Comparison

MetricGPT-5 (low)Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)
Input ($/M tokens)$1.25$2
Output ($/M tokens)$10$10
Cost for 1M input + 100K output tokens:
GPT-5 (low)$2.25
Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)$3.00

Speed Comparison

Output Speed (tokens/s) — higher is better
GPT-5 (low)
78 tok/s
Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)
87 tok/s
Time to First Token (seconds) — lower is better
GPT-5 (low)
10.01s
Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)
134.45s

Benchmark Comparison

Data from Artificial Analysis API — 12 benchmarks

Intelligence Index
31.253.4
Coding Index
71.5
Math Index
83.0
GPQA Diamond
80.8%91.1%
MMLU-Pro
86.0%
LiveCodeBench
76.3%
AIME 2025
83.0%
MATH-500
98.7%
Humanity's Last Exam
18.4%39.6%
SciCode
39.1%53.6%
IFBench
66.6%
TerminalBench
26.5%
GPT-5 (low)7 wins
5 winsClaude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is cheaper, GPT-5 (low) or Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)?

GPT-5 (low) is cheaper overall. Its blended price (3:1 input/output ratio) is $3.44/M tokens vs $4.00/M for Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort).

Which model performs better on benchmarks?

GPT-5 (low) wins 7 out of 12 benchmarks compared to 5 for Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort). See the detailed benchmark chart above for per-category results.

Which is faster for real-time applications?

Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) generates tokens faster at 87 tok/s vs 78 tok/s. GPT-5 (low) also has lower time-to-first-token (10.01s vs 134.45s).

When should I use GPT-5 (low) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)?

Choose based on your priorities: GPT-5 (low) for lower cost, GPT-5 (low) for stronger benchmark performance, and Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) for faster generation. For latency-sensitive apps, check the TTFT comparison above.