Head-to-head · frontier vs frontier

Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning vs GPT-5.2 Pro: which model should you choose?

We compared Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning and GPT-5.2 Pro on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. GPT-5.2 Pro has the stronger average benchmark score; GPT-5.2 Pro is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.

Anthropic

Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning

Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning is a frontier model from Anthropic. It offers a 2,000,000-token context window, costs $20.91 per million input tokens and $108.13 per million output tokens, and averages 88.2 across the index's benchmark suite.

Input
$20.91 / 1M
Output
$108.13 / 1M
Context
2,000,000
Avg score
88.2
Open weights
No
Full Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning page
OpenAI

GPT-5.2 Pro

GPT-5.2 Pro is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 2,000,000-token context window, costs $21.32 per million input tokens and $76.33 per million output tokens, and averages 89.6 across the index's benchmark suite.

Input
$21.32 / 1M
Output
$76.33 / 1M
Context
2,000,000
Avg score
89.6
Open weights
No
Full GPT-5.2 Pro page

Specification comparison

SpecClaude Opus 4.5 ReasoningGPT-5.2 ProEdge
Input price / 1M$20.91$21.32A
Output price / 1M$108.13$76.33B
Context window2,000,0002,000,000Tie
Max output16,38432,768B
Average score88.289.6B
Arena Elo1497.51485.0A
Open weightsNoNoTie

Benchmark comparison

Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning wins 3, GPT-5.2 Pro wins 9, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.

BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.5 ReasoningGPT-5.2 ProGapWinner
MMLU-Pro90.791.60.9GPT-5.2 Pro
GPQA Diamond82.683.20.6GPT-5.2 Pro
SWE-bench Verified79.581.72.2GPT-5.2 Pro
HumanEval92.196.84.7GPT-5.2 Pro
MATH-50091.691.80.2GPT-5.2 Pro
AIME 202588.991.02.1GPT-5.2 Pro
LiveCodeBench81.884.62.8GPT-5.2 Pro
IFEval95.995.60.3Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning
TruthfulQA89.090.01.0GPT-5.2 Pro
HellaSwag93.895.31.5GPT-5.2 Pro
MMMU84.684.40.2Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning
Arena Elo1497.51485.012.5Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning

Price analysis

On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning costs about $42.72 per million tokens and GPT-5.2 Pro costs about $35.07. GPT-5.2 Pro is roughly 18% cheaper than Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.

Both models list a 2,000,000-token context window. That is enough for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.

Verdict

Across 12 shared benchmarks, Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning wins 3, GPT-5.2 Pro wins 9, and 0 are tied. On the index average, GPT-5.2 Pro leads Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning by 1.4 points (89.6 versus 88.2).

The price picture favours GPT-5.2 Pro. The context picture is effectively a tie. 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 Pro for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.

Choose Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning if

  • You prefer Anthropic's tooling or already use it.

Choose GPT-5.2 Pro if

  • You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
  • Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
  • You need the larger 32,768-token output limit.

FAQ

Is Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning better than GPT-5.2 Pro?

On the index average, GPT-5.2 Pro leads Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning by 1.4 points (89.6 versus 88.2). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning wins 3 benchmarks, GPT-5.2 Pro wins 9.

Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning or GPT-5.2 Pro?

GPT-5.2 Pro is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $35.07 per million tokens, versus $42.72 for Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning.

Which has the larger context window?

Both models list a 2,000,000-token context window.

Are these models open weights?

Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning is proprietary; GPT-5.2 Pro is proprietary.

Which should I choose for production?

If you need a single default, start with GPT-5.2 Pro for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.

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