Model Comparison
GPT-5.6 Sol vs Claude Haiku 5.5
GPT-5.6 Sol (low) leads Claude Haiku 5.5 (max effort) by 209 Elo, and their 95% ranges sit 137 Elo apart. Even GPT-5.6 Sol's lowest-rated configuration, GPT-5.6 Sol (ultra), ranks above Claude Haiku 5.5 (max effort). Among 78 models, each ranked by its best configuration, GPT-5.6 Sol is #8 and Claude Haiku 5.5 is #16. Cost per script: $0.113 for GPT-5.6 Sol (low) and $0.103 for Claude Haiku 5.5 (max effort).
Last updated , from board data generated at 01:13 UTC.
Picks and Verdict
PickGPT-5.6 Sol
GPT-5.6 Sol (low)
Pick GPT-5.6 Sol (low) for the script itself, since it rates above every Haiku setting at $0.113 and the board can't separate ultra from it.
PickClaude Haiku 5.5
Claude Haiku 5.5 (xhigh)
Pick Claude Haiku 5.5 (xhigh) for high-volume rough drafts at $0.029 a script, where it already holds most of the Elo that Haiku gains from thinking.
More thinking does nothing for GPT-5.6 Sol and nearly everything for Claude Haiku 5.5. GPT-5.6 Sol (low) already rates above every Haiku setting. It sits 209 Elo ahead of Claude Haiku 5.5 (max effort), Haiku's best, with separate 95% ranges: the #8 model of 78 against the #16 model, each ranked by its best setting. The two cost about the same, $0.113 against $0.103, and Sol is done in a minute while Haiku takes more than twelve. Going up to ultra more than triples Sol's price and rates 5 Elo lower, so I'd leave it at low. Haiku needs the thinking. From low to max effort it climbs 505 Elo, and most of that is already there at xhigh, which costs $0.029. Max effort rates 82 Elo above xhigh, with ranges that only just separate, and costs about three and a half times as much. Both of those Haiku settings land closer to the requested length than Sol. For the script I'd film, I'd run GPT-5.6 Sol at low. If I needed hundreds of rough drafts, Haiku at xhigh costs about a quarter as much.
Disclosure: GPT-5.6 Sol and Claude Haiku 5.5 each come from the same lab as one of the judges (GPT-6.1 Sol and Claude Opus 5.5). 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 GPT-5.6 Sol and Claude Haiku 5.5, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-5.6 Sol (low) | 2218 | 2181 to 2251 | 82.3 | $0.113 | 0.9 min | #16 |
| GPT-5.6 Sol (ultra) | 2213 | 2173 to 2266 | 82.3 | $0.367 | 4.1 min | #18 |
| Claude Haiku 5.5 (max effort) | 2009 | 1972 to 2044 | 80.8 | $0.103 | 12.6 min | #31 |
| Claude Haiku 5.5 (xhigh) | 1927 | 1883 to 1965 | 80.0 | $0.029 | 3.6 min | #41 |
| Claude Haiku 5.5 (high) | 1723 | 1679 to 1760 | 78.0 | $0.012 | 1.5 min | #53 |
| Claude Haiku 5.5 (medium) | 1620 | 1572 to 1670 | 76.7 | $0.0067 | 0.8 min | #62 |
| Claude Haiku 5.5 (low) | 1504 | 1461 to 1550 | 75.2 | $0.0045 | 0.5 min | #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.
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. GPT-5.6 Sol (low) leads Claude Haiku 5.5 (max effort) by 209 Elo, and their 95% ranges do not overlap (2181 to 2251 against 1972 to 2044), which is strong evidence for that order.
- Every GPT-5.6 Sol Configuration Ranks Higher. Both GPT-5.6 Sol configurations rank above all five Claude Haiku 5.5 configurations: the lowest-rated, GPT-5.6 Sol (ultra) at Elo 2213, still beats Claude Haiku 5.5 (max effort) at Elo 2009. Their 95% ranges do not overlap.
- Lowest Thinking Levels Head to Head. At their lowest thinking levels, GPT-5.6 Sol (low) at Elo 2218 and $0.113 per script leads Claude Haiku 5.5 (low) at Elo 1504 and $0.0045 per script by 714 Elo. Their 95% ranges do not overlap.
- Same Level Name, Side by Side. At low, the one level name both models use, GPT-5.6 Sol has the higher Writing Elo: 2218 against 1504. 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 GPT-5.6 Sol Configuration Above Claude Haiku 5.5's Best. The cheapest GPT-5.6 Sol configuration with a higher Writing Elo than Claude Haiku 5.5 (max effort), at Elo 2009 and $0.103 per script, is GPT-5.6 Sol (low), at Elo 2218 and $0.113 per script. The two cost about the same per script.
- Lowest to Highest Thinking Level. GPT-5.6 Sol moves -5 Elo from low to ultra, at about 3.2 times the cost per script. 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
GPT-5.6 Sol (low) scores higher on six of the nine metrics and Claude Haiku 5.5 (max effort) on three. Weighted by each metric's share of the Writing Score, Hook Strength does the most to put GPT-5.6 Sol (low) ahead, with a 5.5-point lead on that metric. The weight beside each metric is its share of the Writing Score.
Consistency Across Drafts
| GPT-5.6 Sol (low) | Claude Haiku 5.5 (max effort) | |
|---|---|---|
| Score spread across drafts (±) | 1.27 | 1.55 |
| Lowest script score | 79.8 Script 4 | 78.2 Script 10 |
| Highest script score | 84.2 Script 9 | 82.6 Script 4 |
| Range across scripts | 4.4 | 4.4 |
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 GPT-5.6 Sol (low) minus Claude Haiku 5.5 (max effort), and the higher score is in bold.
| Script | GPT-5.6 Sol (low) | Claude Haiku 5.5 (max effort) | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Script 1 opinion / warning explainer | 82.1 | 80.3 | +1.8 |
| Script 2 news-analysis / skeptical explainer | 82.5 | 80.7 | +1.8 |
| Script 3 personal roadmap / opinion | 82.3 | 80.8 | +1.5 |
| Script 4 short explainer | 79.8 | 82.6 | -2.8 |
| Script 5 news-analysis / opinion explainer | 83.2 | 81.7 | +1.5 |
| Script 6 founder announcement / personal origin story | 82.8 | 81.1 | +1.7 |
| Script 7 personal technical walkthrough / agentic workflow case study | 82.0 | 80.0 | +2.0 |
| Script 8 product release announcement / personal observation | 82.6 | 81.3 | +1.3 |
| Script 9 career guide / hiring analysis | 84.2 | 81.5 | +2.7 |
| Script 10 engineering process walkthrough / presentation adaptation | 82.0 | 78.2 | +3.8 |
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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