Model Comparison
Claude Haiku 5.5 vs Grok 4.6
Too close to call: the best configurations, Claude Haiku 5.5 (max effort) and Grok 4.6 (high), are 31 Elo apart, and their 95% ranges overlap. Among 78 models, each ranked by its best configuration, Claude Haiku 5.5 is #16 and Grok 4.6 is #19. Cost per script: $0.103 for Claude Haiku 5.5 (max effort) and $0.156 for Grok 4.6 (high).
Last updated , from board data generated at 01:13 UTC.
Picks and Verdict
PickClaude Haiku 5.5
Claude Haiku 5.5 (xhigh)
Pick Claude Haiku 5.5 (xhigh) when price matters at all, since at $0.029 a script its range overlaps Grok 4.6 (high), which costs $0.156.
PickGrok 4.6
Grok 4.6 (high)
Pick Grok 4.6 (high) when tone and video structure come first, since its 79.9 on YouTube Best Practices is more than three points above any Haiku setting.
The best settings here sit 31 Elo apart, and the board can't call it. Claude Haiku 5.5 is the #16 model of 78 and Grok 4.6 the #19 model, each ranked by its best setting, and the 95% ranges of Claude Haiku 5.5 (max effort) and Grok 4.6 (high) overlap. The level names don't help either. At high, the one name both models use, Grok leads by 255 Elo with separate ranges, but high is only the middle of Haiku's five settings, and its top two do the work. Claude Haiku 5.5 (xhigh) is the one I'd look at. Its range overlaps Grok's, and it costs $0.029 a script, less than a fifth of Grok's $0.156. Max effort rates 82 Elo higher, but it costs $0.103 and takes over twelve minutes, more than twice Grok's wait. Grok has real wins: it's closer to my tone by more than two points and ahead on YouTube Best Practices by more than three. Haiku answers with cleaner prose, less slop and steadier drafts. With the two this close, the lower bill wins for me, and that's Haiku at xhigh.
Disclosure: Claude Haiku 5.5 comes from the same lab as one of the four judges, Claude Opus 5.5. The other three sit outside its lab, so it is never 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 Haiku 5.5 and Grok 4.6, 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 | Reasoning Tokens | Configuration Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 5.5 (max effort) | 2009 | 1972 to 2044 | 80.8 | $0.103 | 12.6 min | N/A | #31 |
| Grok 4.6 (high) | 1978 | 1930 to 2023 | 80.3 | $0.156 | 5.2 min | 18,588 | #36 |
| Claude Haiku 5.5 (xhigh) | 1927 | 1883 to 1965 | 80.0 | $0.029 | 3.6 min | N/A | #41 |
| Claude Haiku 5.5 (high) | 1723 | 1679 to 1760 | 78.0 | $0.012 | 1.5 min | N/A | #53 |
| Claude Haiku 5.5 (medium) | 1620 | 1572 to 1670 | 76.7 | $0.0067 | 0.8 min | N/A | #62 |
| Claude Haiku 5.5 (low) | 1504 | 1461 to 1550 | 75.2 | $0.0045 | 0.5 min | N/A | #74 |
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. N/A under Reasoning Tokens means the board has no separate reasoning count for that route.
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 Haiku 5.5 (max effort) at Elo 2009 (range 1972 to 2044) and Grok 4.6 (high) at Elo 1978 (range 1930 to 2023) have overlapping 95% ranges, so the board cannot separate the two best configurations.
- Same Level Name, Side by Side. At high, the one level name both models use, Grok 4.6 has the higher Writing Elo: 1978 against 1723. Their 95% ranges do not overlap there. Level names come from each provider, so the same name does not promise the same reasoning budget.
- Cheapest Claude Haiku 5.5 Configuration Above Grok 4.6's Best. The cheapest Claude Haiku 5.5 configuration with a higher Writing Elo than Grok 4.6 (high), at Elo 1978 and $0.156 per script, is Claude Haiku 5.5 (max effort), at Elo 2009 and $0.103 per script. Their 95% ranges overlap, so the board cannot separate them. It costs less than the configuration it beats.
- Lowest to Highest Thinking Level. Claude Haiku 5.5 moves +505 Elo from low to max effort, at about 23 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 Haiku 5.5 (max effort) scores higher on five of the nine metrics and Grok 4.6 (high) on four. Weighted by each metric's share of the Writing Score, Length Adherence does the most to put Claude Haiku 5.5 (max effort) ahead, with a 6.6-point lead on that metric. The weight beside each metric is its share of the Writing Score.
Consistency Across Drafts
| Claude Haiku 5.5 (max effort) | Grok 4.6 (high) | |
|---|---|---|
| Score spread across drafts (±) | 1.55 | 1.82 |
| Lowest script score | 78.2 Script 10 | 78.5 Script 3 |
| Highest script score | 82.6 Script 4 | 82.8 Script 6 |
| Range across scripts | 4.4 | 4.3 |
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 Haiku 5.5 (max effort) minus Grok 4.6 (high), and the higher score is in bold.
| Script | Claude Haiku 5.5 (max effort) | Grok 4.6 (high) | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Script 1 opinion / warning explainer | 80.3 | 81.6 | -1.3 |
| Script 2 news-analysis / skeptical explainer | 80.7 | 80.8 | -0.1 |
| Script 3 personal roadmap / opinion | 80.8 | 78.5 | +2.3 |
| Script 4 short explainer | 82.6 | 80.2 | +2.4 |
| Script 5 news-analysis / opinion explainer | 81.7 | 81.1 | +0.6 |
| Script 6 founder announcement / personal origin story | 81.1 | 82.8 | -1.7 |
| Script 7 personal technical walkthrough / agentic workflow case study | 80.0 | 79.0 | +1.0 |
| Script 8 product release announcement / personal observation | 81.3 | 79.7 | +1.6 |
| Script 9 career guide / hiring analysis | 81.5 | 80.4 | +1.1 |
| Script 10 engineering process walkthrough / presentation adaptation | 78.2 | 79.1 | -0.9 |
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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