Claude Fable 5.1 vs Claude Sonnet 5.5

$2.98 / task
Wins 21 of 43 benchmarks
$0.88 / task
Wins 5 of 43 benchmarks
Different efforts: medium · high · Compare all at high
Humanity's Last Exam Humanity's Last Exam: Very hard expert questions across many fields, written to stump today’s models
Fable 5.153.8
Sonnet 5.545.8
Arena Text · overall Arena Text · overall: Human pairwise preferences in the stated text vote pool
Fable 5.1 · max1,502
Sonnet 5.5 · xhigh1,475
Arena Text · Chinese Arena Text · chinese: Human pairwise preferences in the stated text vote pool
Fable 5.1 · max1,585.6
Sonnet 5.5 · xhigh1,536.9
Arena Text · English Arena Text · english: Human pairwise preferences in the stated text vote pool
Fable 5.1 · max1,504.9
Sonnet 5.5 · xhigh1,484.5
Arena Text · French Arena Text · french: Human pairwise preferences in the stated text vote pool
Fable 5.1 · max1,527.3
Sonnet 5.5 · xhigh1,496.9
Arena Text · instruction following Arena Text · instruction following: Human pairwise preferences in the stated text vote pool
Fable 5.1 · max1,517.2
Sonnet 5.5 · xhigh1,488.5
Arena Text · non-English Arena Text · non english: Human pairwise preferences in the stated text vote pool
Fable 5.1 · max1,507.5
Sonnet 5.5 · xhigh1,454.2
Arena Text · Russian Arena Text · russian: Human pairwise preferences in the stated text vote pool
Fable 5.1 · max1,518.6
Sonnet 5.5 · xhigh1,445.2
Arena Text · Spanish Arena Text · spanish: Human pairwise preferences in the stated text vote pool
Fable 5.1 · max1,520.5
Sonnet 5.5 · xhigh1,450.2
AA Omniscience Index AA Omniscience Index: Scores factual knowledge while penalizing incorrect answers to encourage admitting uncertainty
Fable 5.137.6
Sonnet 5.521
SimpleQA Verified v1 SimpleQA Verified v1: Accuracy on short factual questions with verified answers, answered without web access
Fable 5.1 · max70.8
Sonnet 5.5 · max46.5
CritPt (physics) CritPt (physics): Research-level physics problems that need many careful reasoning steps
Fable 5.129.1
Sonnet 5.524.6
AA Intelligence Index 4.3.2 AA Intelligence Index 4.3.2: Artificial Analysis combines tests of knowledge, reasoning, coding and tool use into one score
Fable 5.148.9
Sonnet 5.546.8
AA Omniscience · Accuracy AA Omniscience · Accuracy: Measures correct answers on the AA Omniscience factual knowledge test
Fable 5.163.1
Sonnet 5.552
AA Omniscience · Hallucination Rate AA Omniscience · Hallucination Rate: Measures how often attempted answers are incorrect on the AA Omniscience factual knowledge test · lower is better
Fable 5.169.1
Sonnet 5.564.6
AA-LCR (long context) 1.1 AA-LCR (long context) 1.1: Questions that need reading and connecting facts across very long documents (around 100K tokens)
Fable 5.184.7
Sonnet 5.578
GDP.pdf · AA all-pass GDP.pdf · AA all-pass: Models reason over professional PDF documents; an attempt passes only when every atomic criterion passes
Fable 5.126.8
Sonnet 5.525.2
MLCR-AA MLCR-AA: Models synthesize long medical records; the headline credits concise answers judged both accurate and complete
Fable 5.1 · max71.1
Sonnet 5.5 · max75
Chess Puzzles Chess Puzzles: Models choose the best next move from a novel chess position
Fable 5.1 · max48
Sonnet 5.5 · max59
FrontierMath Erdos FrontierMath Erdos: Models solve expert-written advanced mathematics problems on the named tier and edition
Fable 5.1 · max0
Sonnet 5.5 · max2.9
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v2) FrontierMath Tier 4 (v2): Models solve expert-written advanced mathematics problems on the named tier and edition
Fable 5.1 · max87.8
Sonnet 5.5 · max80.5
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3 (v2) FrontierMath Tiers 1–3 (v2): Models solve expert-written advanced mathematics problems on the named tier and edition
Fable 5.1 · max90.2
Sonnet 5.5 · max88.8
Mystery Game Puzzles Mystery Game Puzzles: Models choose the best move in puzzle positions from an undisclosed game
Fable 5.1 · max58
Sonnet 5.5 · max65
Vals MedCode Vals MedCode: Medical coding accuracy on patient encounters
Fable 5.153.5
Sonnet 5.552.9
Vals MedScribe Vals MedScribe: Accuracy of clinical notes produced from consultation transcripts
Fable 5.191.3
Sonnet 5.591.1
Vals Legal Research Bench Vals Legal Research Bench: Grounded legal research; a task passes only if all criteria pass
Fable 5.155.3
Sonnet 5.548.1
Arena Text · German Arena Text · german: Human pairwise preferences in the stated text vote pool
Fable 5.1 · max1,501.7
Sonnet 5.5—
Arena Text · Japanese Arena Text · japanese: Human pairwise preferences in the stated text vote pool
Fable 5.1 · max1,560.1
Sonnet 5.5—
Arena Text · Korean Arena Text · korean: Human pairwise preferences in the stated text vote pool
Fable 5.1 · max1,520.8
Sonnet 5.5—
Arena Text · Polish Arena Text · polish: Human pairwise preferences in the stated text vote pool
Fable 5.1 · max1,524.3
Sonnet 5.5—
ARC-AGI-1 · public evaluation ARC-AGI-1 · public-eval: Models infer transformations from examples and solve unseen grid puzzles; the evaluation split is explicit
Fable 5.196.6
Sonnet 5.5—
ARC-AGI-1 · semi-private ARC-AGI-1 · semi-private: Models infer transformations from examples and solve unseen grid puzzles; the evaluation split is explicit
Fable 5.194.5
Sonnet 5.5—
ARC-AGI-2 · public evaluation ARC-AGI-2 · public-eval: Models infer transformations from examples and solve unseen grid puzzles; the evaluation split is explicit
Fable 5.187.5
Sonnet 5.5—
ARC-AGI-2 · semi-private ARC-AGI-2 · semi-private: Models infer transformations from examples and solve unseen grid puzzles; the evaluation split is explicit
Fable 5.186.3
Sonnet 5.5—
MathArena · ArXivMath · April 2026 MathArena · arxiv · 04/2026: Answer accuracy on the named mathematics competition under the recorded effort
Fable 5.1 · max77.5
Sonnet 5.5—
MathArena · ArXivMath · August 2026 MathArena · arxiv · 08/2026: Answer accuracy on the named mathematics competition under the recorded effort
Fable 5.1 · high87.7
Sonnet 5.5—
MathArena · ArXivMath · June 2026 MathArena · arxiv · 06/2026: Answer accuracy on the named mathematics competition under the recorded effort
Fable 5.1 · max91
Sonnet 5.5—
MathArena · ArXivMath · May 2026 MathArena · arxiv · 05/2026: Answer accuracy on the named mathematics competition under the recorded effort
Fable 5.1 · max87.5
Sonnet 5.5—
MathArena · BrokenArXiv · August 2026 MathArena · arxiv_false · 08/2026: Answer accuracy on the named mathematics competition under the recorded effort
Fable 5.1 · high79.8
Sonnet 5.5—
MathArena · BrokenArXiv · June 2026 MathArena · arxiv_false · 06/2026: Answer accuracy on the named mathematics competition under the recorded effort
Fable 5.1 · low86.6
Sonnet 5.5—
MathArena · BrokenArXiv · May 2026 MathArena · arxiv_false · 05/2026: Answer accuracy on the named mathematics competition under the recorded effort
Fable 5.1 · low78
Sonnet 5.5—
Vals LegalBench Vals LegalBench: Legal reasoning and legal-language understanding on LegalBench
Fable 5.188.5
Sonnet 5.5—
Vals Science Index Vals Science Index: Scientific problem solving across the index’s component evaluations
Fable 5.1—
Sonnet 5.559.1

Specs

SpecFable 5.1Sonnet 5.5
Input, per 1M$10$2
Output, per 1M$50$10
Cost per task?$2.98$0.88
Speed, tok/s56106
Context1M1M
WeightsClosedClosed
ReleasedSep 2026Sep 2026
See images✓✓
Read PDFsPartial✓
Hear audio——
Watch video——
Call tools✓✓
Force a tool callPartial—
Return strict JSON✓✓
Search the web?✓
Run code?✓
Use a computer?✓

What breaks when you switch

Fable 5.1 → Sonnet 5.5
No forced tool use›

Forced tool_choice any or tool returns HTTP 400; remove the forced choice.

Replace disabled thinking›

Disabled thinking returns HTTP 400; use between_tools for the lowest thinking setting.

No manual thinking budgets›

Manual thinking budgets and extra between_tools fields return HTTP 400; remove manual budgets and send between_tools without display, budget_tokens or block_binding.

Remove sampling parameters›

Non-default temperature, top_p or top_k returns HTTP 400; remove these parameters.

No assistant prefill›

A prefilled final assistant turn returns HTTP 400; remove that prefill.

Old computer tool rejected · Claude API / Google Cloud›

The computer_20251124 tool returns HTTP 400 on the Claude API and Google Cloud; use computer_toolset_20260801 there.

Sonnet 5.5 → Fable 5.1
Replace forced tool_choice›

Forced tool_choice returns HTTP 400; use auto with an explicit instruction and strict tools, or JSON outputs.

Adaptive thinking is always on›

Disabled thinking or manual budget_tokens returns HTTP 400; omit thinking or use adaptive thinking.

No non-default sampling values›

Non-default temperature, top_p or top_k returns HTTP 400; omit non-default sampling values.

Requires 30-day data retention · Claude API›

A Claude API organization or workspace without 30-day retention receives HTTP 400; configure workspace retention or contact the Anthropic account team.

Thinking blocks bind to conversations›

Where conversation binding is enforced, replaying an invalidated block returns HTTP 400; use the documented drop_block control to continue without it.

No assistant prefill›

Assistant prefill returns HTTP 400; use system prompt instructions instead.