Model Comparison
Claude Fable 5 vs GPT-5.6 Terra
Claude Fable 5 (max effort, Opus 4.8 fallback) leads GPT-5.6 Terra (ultra) by 165 Elo, and their 95% ranges sit 73 Elo apart. Among 78 models, each ranked by its best configuration, Claude Fable 5 is #6 and GPT-5.6 Terra is #13. Cost per script: $3.20 for Claude Fable 5 (max effort, Opus 4.8 fallback) and $0.275 for GPT-5.6 Terra (ultra).
Last updated , from board data generated at 01:13 UTC.
Picks and Verdict
PickClaude Fable 5
Claude Fable 5 (high)
Pick Claude Fable 5 (high) for a script you'll put on camera, since at $1.34 it rates above both Terra settings and costs well under half of max effort.
PickGPT-5.6 Terra
GPT-5.6 Terra (medium)
Pick GPT-5.6 Terra (medium) for drafts in volume at $0.062 each, with a stronger hook than Fable and a range that overlaps ultra's.
Each of these models has a top setting I'd think twice about. By best setting, Claude Fable 5 is the #6 model of 78 and GPT-5.6 Terra the #13 model. Claude Fable 5 (max effort, Opus 4.8 fallback) and GPT-5.6 Terra (ultra) are 165 Elo apart, and their separate 95% ranges are strong evidence that Fable writes the better script. But max effort sits 83 Elo above Claude Fable 5 (high) with overlapping ranges, and it costs $3.20 against $1.34. Terra has the same pattern on a smaller bill: ultra costs more than four times as much as medium for 76 more Elo, and the board cannot separate those two either. So the match-up I'd look at is Fable at high against GPT-5.6 Terra (medium). Fable still leads there by 158 Elo with a separate range, mostly on continuity, YouTube best practices and length. Against Terra at ultra, its range overlaps. Terra writes the stronger hook by more than four points and edges Fable on substance, and Fable at high costs about 22 times its $0.062. My split: Fable at high when the script matters, Terra at medium for volume.
Disclosure: Claude Fable 5 and GPT-5.6 Terra each come from the same lab as one of the judges (Claude Opus 5.5 and GPT-6.1 Sol). Neither is scored by its own lab alone (how the panel works). The judge analysis measures how much each judge favors its own lab.
How to Read the Writing Score, Writing Elo and 95% Ranges
Writing Score and Writing Elo. The Writing Score (0 to 100) is the weighted average of the nine metric scores: seven from the judges, Length Adherence from code and the Slop Score half from each. The Writing Elo is a rating from pairwise comparisons: on each script, each configuration's average across its drafts is compared with every other configuration's, and gaps within the draft-to-draft variation count as draws. Elo rewards winning often, so the two can put configurations in a different order.
Elo ranges. Each 95% range shows how far a configuration's Elo could move if the drafts had come out slightly differently. It comes from resampling every configuration's recorded draft scores on each reference script and ranking again. Comparing two separate ranges does not test the Elo gap between them: ranges far apart are strong evidence for the order, and overlapping ranges do not mean a tie. The reference scripts stay fixed, so the ranges say nothing about new scripts. The methodology page has the full description.
All Thinking Levels of Both Models
Every ranked configuration of Claude Fable 5 and GPT-5.6 Terra, scored on the same 10 scripts by the same four judges.
- Each row is one configuration: the model at one thinking level. The dot is its Writing Elo, a rating from pairwise comparisons of the scores on each script, and the bar is its 95% range: how far that Elo could move if the drafts had come out slightly differently.
- When two bars overlap, the board cannot order those two configurations. Bars far apart are strong evidence for the order.
- The table under the chart lists the same configurations in the same order and adds the Writing Score (the 0 to 100 consensus of the judges and code), cost, time and configuration rank (the place among all configurations on the board).
Shaded rows are the configurations chosen for the metric comparison below.
| Configuration | Writing Elo | 95% Range | Writing Score | Cost / Script | Time / Script | Configuration Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Fable 5 (max effort, Opus 4.8 fallback) | 2239 | 2186 to 2298 | 82.9 | $3.20 | 12.5 min | #12 |
| Claude Fable 5 (high) | 2156 | 2102 to 2204 | 81.9 | $1.34 | 4.9 min | #22 |
| GPT-5.6 Terra (ultra) | 2074 | 2035 to 2113 | 81.4 | $0.275 | 8.0 min | #25 |
| GPT-5.6 Terra (medium) | 1998 | 1952 to 2041 | 80.7 | $0.062 | 1.4 min | #33 |
Cost is one script at the API list price of the route used, uncached and without judging. Time is the average for one accepted script, retries included.
Computed Findings Across Thinking Levels
Each finding is computed from the configurations above. Where two 95% ranges overlap, the board cannot order those two configurations.
- Best Configurations Head to Head. Claude Fable 5 (max effort, Opus 4.8 fallback) leads GPT-5.6 Terra (ultra) by 165 Elo, and their 95% ranges do not overlap (2186 to 2298 against 2035 to 2113), which is strong evidence for that order.
- Lowest Thinking Levels Head to Head. At their lowest thinking levels, Claude Fable 5 (high) at Elo 2156 and $1.34 per script leads GPT-5.6 Terra (medium) at Elo 1998 and $0.062 per script by 158 Elo. Their 95% ranges do not overlap.
- Cheapest Configuration Overlapping the Top One. Claude Fable 5 (high), at $1.34 per script, is the cheapest configuration whose 95% range overlaps that of Claude Fable 5 (max effort, Opus 4.8 fallback), at $3.20 per script: 2102 to 2204 against 2186 to 2298, so the board cannot separate them. Claude Fable 5 (max effort, Opus 4.8 fallback) costs about 2.4 times as much per script.
- Cheapest Claude Fable 5 Configuration Above GPT-5.6 Terra's Best. The cheapest Claude Fable 5 configuration with a higher Writing Elo than GPT-5.6 Terra (ultra), at Elo 2074 and $0.275 per script, is Claude Fable 5 (high), at Elo 2156 and $1.34 per script. Their 95% ranges overlap, so the board cannot separate them. It costs about 4.9 times as much per script.
- Lowest to Highest Thinking Level. Claude Fable 5 moves +83 Elo from high to max effort, at about 2.4 times the cost per script. GPT-5.6 Terra moves +76 Elo from medium to ultra, at about 4.4 times the cost per script.
Two Chosen Configurations Compared
Pick one configuration of each model to compare their metric scores, consistency across drafts and per-script scores. Each menu starts on the model's best configuration.
Scores by Metric
Claude Fable 5 (max effort, Opus 4.8 fallback) scores higher on six of the nine metrics and GPT-5.6 Terra (ultra) on three. Weighted by each metric's share of the Writing Score, Tone & Voice Match does the most to put Claude Fable 5 (max effort, Opus 4.8 fallback) ahead, with a 3.7-point lead on that metric. The weight beside each metric is its share of the Writing Score.
Consistency Across Drafts
| Claude Fable 5 (max effort, Opus 4.8 fallback) | GPT-5.6 Terra (ultra) | |
|---|---|---|
| Score spread across drafts (±) | 1.96 | 1.38 |
| Lowest script score | 81.2 Script 8 | 79.8 Script 4 |
| Highest script score | 86.4 Script 7 | 83.0 Script 6 |
| Range across scripts | 5.2 | 3.2 |
Spread is how much the Writing Score moves between a configuration's drafts, and lower is steadier. Green marks the better number in each row.
Scores by Script
Writing Score on each reference script. Gap is Claude Fable 5 (max effort, Opus 4.8 fallback) minus GPT-5.6 Terra (ultra), and the higher score is in bold.
| Script | Claude Fable 5 (max effort, Opus 4.8 fallback) | GPT-5.6 Terra (ultra) | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Script 1 opinion / warning explainer | 83.1 | 81.1 | +2.0 |
| Script 2 news-analysis / skeptical explainer | 83.7 | 82.1 | +1.6 |
| Script 3 personal roadmap / opinion | 81.6 | 82.5 | -0.9 |
| Script 4 short explainer | 81.6 | 79.8 | +1.8 |
| Script 5 news-analysis / opinion explainer | 82.5 | 82.2 | +0.3 |
| Script 6 founder announcement / personal origin story | 82.9 | 83.0 | -0.1 |
| Script 7 personal technical walkthrough / agentic workflow case study | 86.4 | 80.6 | +5.8 |
| Script 8 product release announcement / personal observation | 81.2 | 80.3 | +0.9 |
| Script 9 career guide / hiring analysis | 83.2 | 81.8 | +1.4 |
| Script 10 engineering process walkthrough / presentation adaptation | 82.8 | 80.6 | +2.2 |
Scorecards and Thinking Pages
Each configuration name in the table above opens its own scorecard.
Compare With Another Model
Pick a second model. A pair with its own written match-up opens that page, and any other pair opens in the comparison tool.
Nearby Match-Ups by Best Writing Elo
Every configuration wrote five drafts for each of the same 10 briefs, from the same prompt. Generation was closed-book, with the prompt as the only source and no web search or other tools. Each judge scores every draft once: Claude Opus 5.5 at medium effort through the Claude Code subscription, GPT-6.1 Sol at medium reasoning through the Codex CLI, GLM 5.3 Flash through OpenRouter, and Jev 1.13, a typed judge from TypeSafe that answers each metric as a multiple-choice question. The channel's finished script is their reference for the voice, and it gets no score on the board itself.
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