#115 Robin: Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Opus 5.5 - I Tested Both on 7 Real Workflows

Opus 5.5 costs roughly 2x more than Sonnet 5.5 - but the cheaper model still came out ahead in four of seven real-world tests. The real question isn’t which Claude model is “best,” but when paying extra actually improves the result. Pasted markdown

We’ll talk about:

• Sonnet vs. Opus in Real Workflows: Websites, dashboards, spreadsheets, motion design, planning, and documents tested with the same prompts.
• Where Opus Earns the Premium: Creative direction, vague goals, and tasks where the model needs to decide what “good” should look like. Pasted markdown
• Where Sonnet Is Enough: Clear specs, reusable skills, repeatable workflows, and outputs that are easy to check.
• The Cost Surprise: Opus used far more time and input tokens, but the total cost difference across all seven tests was only about $16. Pasted markdown
• The Simple Rule: A strong prompt can dramatically reduce the gap between Sonnet and Opus.

Keywords: Claude Sonnet 5.5, Claude Opus 5.5, Anthropic, Claude AI, AI Model Comparison, AI Coding, Claude Skills, AI Workflows, Prompt Engineering, LLM Cost, AI Agents.

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