Claude Opus 5.5 and what to use instead
For writing marketing and blog copy, Claude Opus 5.5 scores 100 and costs $27.20 per 1,000 drafts. 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 50% cheaper per draft, and 5 points weaker.$13.60 per 1,000 drafts · score 95Compare side by side →
Better at a similar price
At least 5 points stronger and no more than 20% dearer.
Nothing we track fits this today.
Open weights you can host
Ranked by value: quality for the money.
GLM-5.3-FlashZ.ai · open weightsAbout 97% cheaper per draft, and 36 points weaker.$0.72 per 1,000 drafts · score 64Compare side by side →
GLM-5.3Z.ai · open weightsAbout 76% cheaper per draft, and 30 points weaker.$6.40 per 1,000 drafts · score 70Compare side by side →
Kimi K3Moonshot AI · open weightsAbout 25% cheaper per draft, and 31 points weaker.$20.40 per 1,000 drafts · score 69Compare 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.