Claude 5.5 SonnetvsStep Audio 2

Claude 5.5 Sonnet leads the overall Podium Score by 5.8 points (94.8 vs 89.0).Category wins: Claude 5.5 Sonnet 7 — 0 Step Audio 2.Step Audio 2 is the cheaper pick ($0.024/M vs $15/M per 1M output tokens). Step Audio 2 is faster (150 t/s vs 94 t/s).

Claude 5.5 SonnetDrag slider or hover to compareStep Audio 2
Step Audio 2
89.0
Coding: 0.0 · Speed: 150 t/s
Output Price: $0.024/M
Claude 5.5 Sonnet
94.8
Coding: 91.5 · Speed: 94 t/s
Output Price: $15/M
Quick VerdictAggregated 2026 Benchmark Analysis

Claude 5.5 Sonnet is rated higher overall with a Podium Score of 94.8 (vs 89.0 for Step Audio 2). In head-to-head domain evaluations, Claude 5.5 Sonnet outperforms in 7 of 7 benchmark categories.

Coding & Engineering
Claude 5.5 Sonnet (91.5)
Inference Speed
Step Audio 2 (150 t/s)
Cost Efficiency
Step Audio 2 ($0.024/M)
API Price / 1M (in · out)
Claude 5.5 Sonnet $3/M · $15/M — Step Audio 2 $0.012/M · $0.024/M

Choose Claude 5.5 Sonnet for long documents and large codebases, and Step Audio 2 for cost-sensitive workloads.

MetricClaude 5.5 SonnetStep Audio 2
Podium Score94.8 ▲89.0
Arena Elo1520 ▲1422
Intelligence Index95.0 ▲89.0
Coding91.5 ▲0.0
Math94.2 ▲0.0
Reasoning95.0 ▲32.0
Agentic89.4 ▲55.0
Knowledge88.0 ▲46.0
Multimodal96.0 ▲85.0
Long-context98.0 ▲45.0
Output speed94 t/s150 t/s ▲
Output price$15/M$0.024/M ▲
Context window1000K ▲64K
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