Claude Opus 4.5 Pro vs GPT-5.2 Max: which model should you choose?
We compared Claude Opus 4.5 Pro and GPT-5.2 Max on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. GPT-5.2 Max has the stronger average benchmark score; Claude Opus 4.5 Pro is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Claude Opus 4.5 Pro
Claude Opus 4.5 Pro is a frontier model from Anthropic. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $20.98 per million input tokens and $85.59 per million output tokens, and averages 89.1 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $20.98 / 1M
- Output
- $85.59 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 89.1
- Open weights
- No
GPT-5.2 Max
GPT-5.2 Max is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $21.39 per million input tokens and $90.69 per million output tokens, and averages 89.2 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $21.39 / 1M
- Output
- $90.69 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 89.2
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Claude Opus 4.5 Pro | GPT-5.2 Max | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $20.98 | $21.39 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $85.59 | $90.69 | A |
| Context window | 200,000 | 1,000,000 | B |
| Max output | 32,768 | 128,000 | B |
| Average score | 89.1 | 89.2 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1483.9 | 1495.3 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Claude Opus 4.5 Pro wins 5, GPT-5.2 Max wins 7, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.5 Pro | GPT-5.2 Max | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 91.2 | 87.6 | 3.6 | Claude Opus 4.5 Pro |
| GPQA Diamond | 86.0 | 83.4 | 2.6 | Claude Opus 4.5 Pro |
| SWE-bench Verified | 81.1 | 80.5 | 0.6 | Claude Opus 4.5 Pro |
| HumanEval | 93.4 | 93.6 | 0.2 | GPT-5.2 Max |
| MATH-500 | 91.2 | 96.7 | 5.5 | GPT-5.2 Max |
| AIME 2025 | 91.4 | 88.2 | 3.2 | Claude Opus 4.5 Pro |
| LiveCodeBench | 84.1 | 84.8 | 0.7 | GPT-5.2 Max |
| IFEval | 96.1 | 95.2 | 0.9 | Claude Opus 4.5 Pro |
| TruthfulQA | 86.7 | 88.1 | 1.4 | GPT-5.2 Max |
| HellaSwag | 95.2 | 96.1 | 0.9 | GPT-5.2 Max |
| MMMU | 83.3 | 86.9 | 3.6 | GPT-5.2 Max |
| Arena Elo | 1483.9 | 1495.3 | 11.4 | GPT-5.2 Max |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Claude Opus 4.5 Pro costs about $37.13 per million tokens and GPT-5.2 Max costs about $38.72. Claude Opus 4.5 Pro is roughly 4% cheaper than GPT-5.2 Max. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
GPT-5.2 Max has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens, compared with 200,000 for Claude Opus 4.5 Pro. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Claude Opus 4.5 Pro wins 5, GPT-5.2 Max wins 7, and 0 are tied. On the index average, GPT-5.2 Max leads Claude Opus 4.5 Pro by 0.1 points (89.2 versus 89.1).
The price picture favours Claude Opus 4.5 Pro. The context picture favours GPT-5.2 Max. Those two dimensions often matter more than a few benchmark points once a model is good enough for the task.
If you need a single default, start with GPT-5.2 Max for quality-sensitive work and Claude Opus 4.5 Pro for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose Claude Opus 4.5 Pro if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
Choose GPT-5.2 Max if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- You need the larger 1,000,000-token context window.
- You need the larger 128,000-token output limit.
FAQ
Is Claude Opus 4.5 Pro better than GPT-5.2 Max?
On the index average, GPT-5.2 Max leads Claude Opus 4.5 Pro by 0.1 points (89.2 versus 89.1). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Claude Opus 4.5 Pro wins 5 benchmarks, GPT-5.2 Max wins 7.
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.5 Pro or GPT-5.2 Max?
Claude Opus 4.5 Pro is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $37.13 per million tokens, versus $38.72 for GPT-5.2 Max.
Which has the larger context window?
GPT-5.2 Max has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens. Claude Opus 4.5 Pro has 200,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Claude Opus 4.5 Pro is proprietary; GPT-5.2 Max is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with GPT-5.2 Max for quality-sensitive work and Claude Opus 4.5 Pro for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.