Claude Fable 5.2 vs Claude Opus 5.5
Claude Fable 5.2 and Claude Opus 5.5 are within three points on the Models at Work leaderboard, which we treat as a tie (71 vs 70 out of 100). On independent tests alone, Claude Fable 5.2 is ahead (100 vs 83). Claude Opus 5.5 is cheaper: 1,000 support replies cost about $20 at list price, against $40 on Claude Fable 5.2, which is 2 times as much. On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, one of the independent tests, Claude Fable 5.2 leads 65 to 59.
| Claude Fable 5.2 · Anthropic | Claude Opus 5.5 · Anthropic | |
|---|---|---|
| Leaderboard rank | #3 | #5 |
| Score (0–100) | 71 | 70 |
| Kind of work | Hardest problems | Hardest problems |
| Price per 1M tokens | $8 to read · $40 to write | $4 to read · $20 to write |
| Reads at once | 1M tokens (about 750,000 words) | 1M tokens (about 750,000 words) |
| Where you can get it | Claude Team and Enterprise, Amazon Bedrock, Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform (Google Cloud), Microsoft Foundry | Claude Team and Enterprise, Amazon Bedrock, Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform (Google Cloud), Microsoft Foundry, Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot |
| Can a company host it itself | No | No |
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index | 65 | 59 |
| Humanity's Last Exam, Diamond (Scale) | 72.40 | 55.00 |
| Humanity's Sixth Sense (Scale) | 59.50 | 44.60 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 173 | 167 |
| Arena text score | Not measured | 1507 |
| Best for | Financial and technical analysis with no room for error, Multi-step research, Work Claude Opus 5.5 gets wrong | Long reports and analysis, Reading long contracts, Multi-step research, Work a cheaper model gets wrong |
Cost of 1,000 jobs
| 1,000 of these | Claude Fable 5.2 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Support repliesthe customer message, the account notes and two help articles read; a 300-word reply written | $40 | $20 |
| Documents processeda two-page invoice or form read; the fields pulled out | $28 | $14 |
| Calls summariseda 40-minute call transcript read; a summary and next steps written | $104 | $52 |
| Contracts revieweda 40-page contract read against a checklist; a memo of issues written | $300 | $150 |
| Drafts writtena brief and one example read; a 600-word email or proposal section written | $44 | $22 |
Worked out from each vendor’s list price and a fixed size for each job. A product built on a model charges its own price on top. See what every model costs for the same jobs.
Choose Claude Fable 5.2 for
- Financial and technical analysis with no room for error
- Multi-step research
- Work Claude Opus 5.5 gets wrong
The strongest model on the board for problems the others get wrong: first on every independent test read, at twice the list price of Claude Opus 5.5.
Caveats: Anthropic's own advice is to start with Opus 5.5 and move up only when its answers fall short. It writes more per answer: Artificial Analysis's test run cost $26.54 per task at the top effort setting against $10.04 for Opus 5.5, a wider gap than the list prices suggest. On Claude Team it is offered on premium seats, up to half the weekly usage limit; Enterprise bills usage at API rates, per Anthropic's pricing page. Mythos 5.2 is the same model without the cyber and biology safeguards, open only through Anthropic's verification programs. It ranks third, not first, because price is 30% of the score and this is the second most expensive model here; on independent test results alone it is first.
Choose Claude Opus 5.5 for
- Long reports and analysis
- Reading long contracts
- Multi-step research
- Work a cheaper model gets wrong
The safer buy for hard work: six points behind Claude Fable 5.2 on Artificial Analysis's index (59 against 65) at half its list price, and the model Anthropic says to start with.
Caveats: Twice the list price of Claude Sonnet 5.5; test your own work on Sonnet before paying for this one. On Arena, where people vote blind between two models' answers, Gemini 4 Argon is ahead, but the gap is within the margin of error. In Microsoft 365 Copilot, Claude models are off by default in the EU, EFTA and UK until an administrator allows Anthropic as a subprocessor (a company permitted to handle your data), per Microsoft.
What people running them say
Claude Fable 5.2: One Hacker News (developer forum) launch thread, read through Signals: a commenter who tried it says it pulls ahead of Opus 5.5 only on very ambitious requests, another says Opus 5.5 at a high effort setting was enough for a software project of 125,000 lines, and a third asks how anyone measures the difference at the price. Too little to score.
Claude Opus 5.5: Its launch thread was the year's biggest about a Claude model on Hacker News, a developer forum. One project there credited the model with rewriting a large piece of programming software (the TypeScript compiler) in another programming language, Rust, to a working state in ten hours, and a Vals AI materials-discovery run used it to run simulations on its own. The most-upvoted doubt is a tracker asking whether the model has been quietly made worse since launch.
Questions people ask
Which is better, Claude Fable 5.2 or Claude Opus 5.5?
Claude Fable 5.2 and Claude Opus 5.5 are within three points on the Models at Work leaderboard, which we treat as a tie (71 vs 70 out of 100). On independent tests alone, Claude Fable 5.2 is ahead (100 vs 83). Claude Opus 5.5 is cheaper: 1,000 support replies cost about $20 at list price, against $40 on Claude Fable 5.2, which is 2 times as much. On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, one of the independent tests, Claude Fable 5.2 leads 65 to 59.
When should I choose Claude Fable 5.2 over Claude Opus 5.5?
Choose Claude Fable 5.2 for financial and technical analysis with no room for error, multi-step research, work claude opus 5.5 gets wrong. The strongest model on the board for problems the others get wrong: first on every independent test read, at twice the list price of Claude Opus 5.5.
When should I choose Claude Opus 5.5 over Claude Fable 5.2?
Choose Claude Opus 5.5 for long reports and analysis, reading long contracts, multi-step research, work a cheaper model gets wrong. The safer buy for hard work: six points behind Claude Fable 5.2 on Artificial Analysis's index (59 against 65) at half its list price, and the model Anthropic says to start with.
Which is cheaper, Claude Fable 5.2 or Claude Opus 5.5?
Claude Fable 5.2 costs $8 per million tokens it reads (input) and $40 per million tokens it writes (output) on Anthropic's list price (Claude pricing, read Nov 12, 2026). A token is about three-quarters of a word. Claude Opus 5.5 costs $4 per million tokens it reads (input) and $20 per million tokens it writes (output) on Anthropic's list price (Claude pricing, read Nov 12, 2026). A token is about three-quarters of a word.
What do 1,000 jobs cost on Claude Fable 5.2 and Claude Opus 5.5?
At list price: 1,000 support replies cost $40 on Claude Fable 5.2 and $20 on Claude Opus 5.5; 1,000 documents processed cost $28 on Claude Fable 5.2 and $14 on Claude Opus 5.5; 1,000 calls summarised cost $104 on Claude Fable 5.2 and $52 on Claude Opus 5.5; 1,000 contracts reviewed cost $300 on Claude Fable 5.2 and $150 on Claude Opus 5.5; 1,000 drafts written cost $44 on Claude Fable 5.2 and $22 on Claude Opus 5.5. A product built on either model charges its own price on top.
Scores come from the Models at Work leaderboard: Score is 0 to 100 and computed, not typed. 40% is independent testing (Artificial Analysis, Arena, Scale, Epoch, Vals and others; each test is scaled against the best score on this board, and tests of real work, such as finished freelance projects or professional tasks, count double the exams). 30% is price: the vendor's list price for a typical mix of reading and writing, on a fixed scale from $0.05 to $60 per million tokens, so a model that costs a fifth as much gains real ground. 15% is what people report after running it, from Signals and linked threads. 15% is fit: how much text it can take in at once and where a business can get it (the products and clouds that carry it), with a small credit for open weights. A missing component drops out and the rest are reweighted. A model with no independent test yet is provisional and ranks below every measured one. Within three points is a tie. Vendor-published figures are labelled and never counted. Prices are vendor list prices where published; a typical mix assumes three parts reading to one part writing.