Claude Opus 5 and what to use instead
For customer support replies, Claude Opus 5 scores 84 and costs $17.50 per 1,000 replies. Here’s what beats it on price, on quality, or on privacy.
Cheaper at similar quality
At least 30% cheaper and within 5 points.
Gemini 4 ArgonGoogleAbout 60% cheaper per reply, and 14 points stronger.$7.00 per 1,000 replies · score 97Compare side by side →
Better at a similar price
At least 5 points stronger and no more than 20% dearer.
Gemini 4 ArgonGoogleAbout 60% cheaper per reply, and 14 points stronger.$7.00 per 1,000 replies · score 97Compare side by side →
Claude Opus 5.5AnthropicAbout 20% cheaper per reply, and 6 points stronger.$14.00 per 1,000 replies · score 90Compare side by side →
Open weights you can host
Ranked by value: quality for the money.
GLM-5.3-FlashZ.ai · open weightsAbout 98% cheaper per reply, and 17 points weaker.$0.43 per 1,000 replies · score 67Compare side by side →
Kimi K3Moonshot AI · open weightsAbout 40% cheaper per reply, and 11 points weaker.$10.50 per 1,000 replies · score 73Compare side by side →
GLM-5.3Z.ai · open weightsAbout 78% cheaper per reply, and 16 points weaker.$3.86 per 1,000 replies · score 67Compare side by side →
Scores are provisional (Arena and Epoch AI) and prices are list prices. Rankings never take money into account. Thresholds are in the methodology.