Model Comparison
Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Claude Opus 5
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max effort) leads Claude Opus 5 (max effort) by 242 Elo, and their 95% ranges sit 143 Elo apart. Among 78 models, each ranked by its best configuration, Claude Sonnet 5.5 is #2 and Claude Opus 5 is #5. Cost per script: $1.38 for Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max effort) and $0.736 for Claude Opus 5 (max effort).
Last updated , from board data generated at 01:13 UTC.
Picks and Verdict
PickClaude Sonnet 5.5
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (xhigh)
Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (xhigh) as the default, since it sits inside the range of Claude Opus 5's best for $0.302 a script.
PickClaude Opus 5
Claude Opus 5 (max effort)
Pick Claude Opus 5 (max effort) when the hook and the YouTube structure matter most, since it leads Sonnet at xhigh on both by more than a point.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 wins at the top, and its xhigh setting is the one that convinces me. Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max effort) sits 242 Elo above Claude Opus 5 (max effort), with ranges that don't overlap, the #2 model of 78 against the #5 model. That costs $1.38 a script and over 14 minutes, though. One step down is what I'd actually run: Sonnet at xhigh lands 29 Elo above Opus's best with overlapping ranges, so the board can't order those two, and it costs $0.302 instead of $0.736 and takes about three minutes instead of five and a half. Below xhigh the order flips. At high, Opus leads by 188 Elo with separate ranges, because Sonnet leans so hard on thinking: 753 Elo from low to max effort, against 91 for Opus from high to max. Opus 5 still writes a slightly better hook, follows YouTube structure more closely, and has the steadiest drafts on this page. For me, Sonnet at xhigh is the default, and max effort is for the few scripts where that last step matters.
Disclosure: both models come from the same lab as one of the four judges, Claude Opus 5.5. The other judges sit outside that lab, so 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 Sonnet 5.5 and Claude Opus 5, 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 Sonnet 5.5 (max effort) | 2561 | 2504 to 2614 | 84.6 | $1.38 | 14.3 min | #3 |
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 (xhigh) | 2348 | 2304 to 2383 | 83.2 | $0.302 | 3.1 min | #10 |
| Claude Opus 5 (max effort) | 2319 | 2260 to 2361 | 83.3 | $0.736 | 5.5 min | #11 |
| Claude Opus 5 (high) | 2228 | 2180 to 2278 | 82.6 | $0.472 | 3.5 min | #13 |
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 (high) | 2040 | 1984 to 2087 | 81.0 | $0.092 | 1.0 min | #27 |
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 (medium) | 1856 | 1812 to 1900 | 79.4 | $0.065 | 0.6 min | #47 |
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 (low) | 1808 | 1771 to 1843 | 78.9 | $0.061 | 0.7 min | #50 |
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 Sonnet 5.5 (max effort) leads Claude Opus 5 (max effort) by 242 Elo, and their 95% ranges do not overlap (2504 to 2614 against 2260 to 2361), which is strong evidence for that order.
- Lowest Thinking Levels Head to Head. At their lowest thinking levels, Claude Opus 5 (high) at Elo 2228 and $0.472 per script leads Claude Sonnet 5.5 (low) at Elo 1808 and $0.061 per script by 420 Elo. Their 95% ranges do not overlap.
- Same Level Name, Side by Side. Across the level names both models use, Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads at max; Claude Opus 5 leads at high. The 95% ranges do not overlap at any of them. Level names come from each provider, so the same name does not promise the same reasoning budget.
- Cheapest Claude Sonnet 5.5 Configuration Above Claude Opus 5's Best. The cheapest Claude Sonnet 5.5 configuration with a higher Writing Elo than Claude Opus 5 (max effort), at Elo 2319 and $0.736 per script, is Claude Sonnet 5.5 (xhigh), at Elo 2348 and $0.302 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 Sonnet 5.5 moves +753 Elo from low to max effort, at about 23 times the cost per script. Claude Opus 5 moves +91 Elo from high to max effort, at about 1.6 times the cost per script.
Writing Elo at Each Shared Level Name
| Level | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Claude Opus 5 | Gap | 95% Ranges |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| high | 2040 | 2228 | -188 | Separate |
| max | 2561 | 2319 | +242 | Separate |
Gap is Claude Sonnet 5.5 minus Claude Opus 5 at the same level name, using each model's highest-rated configuration at that level.
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 Sonnet 5.5 (max effort) scores higher on six of the nine metrics and Claude Opus 5 (max effort) on three. Weighted by each metric's share of the Writing Score, Length Adherence does the most to put Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max effort) ahead, with a 6.8-point lead on that metric. The weight beside each metric is its share of the Writing Score.
Consistency Across Drafts
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max effort) | Claude Opus 5 (max effort) | |
|---|---|---|
| Score spread across drafts (±) | 1.22 | 1.10 |
| Lowest script score | 83.0 Script 10 | 81.9 Script 10 |
| Highest script score | 86.7 Script 9 | 84.5 Script 7 |
| Range across scripts | 3.7 | 2.6 |
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 Sonnet 5.5 (max effort) minus Claude Opus 5 (max effort), and the higher score is in bold.
| Script | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max effort) | Claude Opus 5 (max effort) | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Script 1 opinion / warning explainer | 84.2 | 83.0 | +1.2 |
| Script 2 news-analysis / skeptical explainer | 84.8 | 83.4 | +1.4 |
| Script 3 personal roadmap / opinion | 84.0 | 83.2 | +0.8 |
| Script 4 short explainer | 85.0 | 83.2 | +1.8 |
| Script 5 news-analysis / opinion explainer | 84.8 | 83.3 | +1.5 |
| Script 6 founder announcement / personal origin story | 84.6 | 83.4 | +1.2 |
| Script 7 personal technical walkthrough / agentic workflow case study | 85.0 | 84.5 | +0.5 |
| Script 8 product release announcement / personal observation | 83.9 | 83.0 | +0.9 |
| Script 9 career guide / hiring analysis | 86.7 | 83.6 | +3.1 |
| Script 10 engineering process walkthrough / presentation adaptation | 83.0 | 81.9 | +1.1 |
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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