For business automation, Claude and OpenAI's GPT models are now close on the basics: both current lineups take text and image input, offer context windows of about a million tokens, and connect to tools such as web search and MCP. Pick by testing your own tasks, and route routine work to the cheaper tier.
This article originally compared Claude with GPT-4. That comparison is out of date: OpenAI's own model catalog now describes GPT-4 as an older model, and both companies have shipped several generations since. Below is what each vendor actually offers as of October 2026, taken from their own documentation, and how to choose between them.
What Are the Current Claude Models?
Anthropic's models overview lists four current models:
- • Claude Fable 5.1: "For demanding reasoning and long-horizon agentic work."
- • Claude Opus 5.5: "For long-running agentic coding and knowledge work." Anthropic says to start with Opus 5.5 for most workloads if you are unsure.
- • Claude Sonnet 5.5: "The best combination of speed and intelligence."
- • Claude Haiku 5.5: "For high-volume, latency-sensitive tasks such as classification, extraction, and routing." Anthropic's Haiku 5.5 page gives its release date as October 7, 2026.
All four have a 1M token context window and up to 128K tokens of output. Anthropic says all current models "support text and image input, text output, multilingual capabilities, vision, and tool use."
What Are the Current OpenAI GPT Models?
OpenAI's API models page features three models:
- • GPT-6 Astra: OpenAI's "most capable model for the most demanding work," for complex reasoning, coding, computer use, research and document creation.
- • GPT-6.1 Sol: "Near-Astra performance for complex work at a lower cost."
- • GPT-6 Luna: OpenAI's "most efficient model for focused, high-volume tasks."
According to OpenAI's model pages for GPT-6 Astra, GPT-6.1 Sol and GPT-6 Luna, each has a 1,050,000 token context window, up to 128,000 output tokens, text and image input, and text output.
Where Are Claude and GPT Now Alike?
The old talking points no longer separate the two.
- • Long documents. The 2026 lineups both handle roughly a million tokens of context, so the context-window gap that used to favor Claude is gone. Full contracts, large codebases and long conversation histories fit in either.
- • Vision. Image input used to be GPT-4's selling point. Every current model on both lists accepts images, so screenshots, charts and photos of paperwork can go into either.
- • Tools. Claude has a web search tool that returns citations, and an MCP connector (in beta) for remote MCP servers. OpenAI's current models list web search, file search, code interpreter, computer use and MCP among their supported tools in the Responses API.
- • Tiers. Both companies sell a premium model for hard, multi-step work and a small, fast model for high-volume jobs.
Because both support the Model Context Protocol, a tool or data connection you build once can serve either model, which makes switching or mixing them far less costly than it used to be.
Where Do Claude and GPT Still Differ?
Real differences are mostly about what else each vendor sells around its text models.
- • Images and voice. OpenAI's API catalog includes image generation models such as GPT-Image-2.5 and realtime voice models such as GPT-Realtime-2.1 and GPT-Live 1. Anthropic's current Claude models return text. If your automation needs to generate images or hold live voice conversations from the same vendor, that points to OpenAI.
- • Model lineup shape. Anthropic offers four tiers, from Fable 5.1 at the top to Haiku 5.5. OpenAI's featured lineup is three models, with a much longer catalog of older and specialized models behind them.
- • Knowledge cutoff. Anthropic lists a reliable knowledge cutoff of June 2026 for its current models. OpenAI lists April 30, 2026 for GPT-6 Astra and GPT-6.1 Sol, and May 18, 2026 for GPT-6 Luna. For anything recent, use a search tool with either.
Quality on your specific task is the difference that matters most, and no vendor page can tell you that. Run the same real examples through both and compare.
What Do Claude and GPT Cost?
Published API list prices, in U.S. dollars per million tokens, as of October 2026:
- • Top tier: Claude Fable 5.1 is $10 input and $50 output. GPT-6 Astra is $10 input and $50 output.
- • Default workhorse: Claude Opus 5.5 is $4 input and $20 output. Claude Sonnet 5.5 is $2 input and $10 output. GPT-6.1 Sol is $2 input and $10 output.
- • High-volume tier: Claude Haiku 5.5 starts from $0.10 input and $0.50 output. GPT-6 Luna is $0.10 input and $0.50 output.
Both vendors add rules on top of these rates, such as prompt caching and batch discounts. Long prompts can also cost more: Claude Haiku 5.5 has higher prices for prompts over 100,000 tokens, and OpenAI's GPT-6 models charge more for prompts over 272K input tokens. Check Anthropic's pricing page and OpenAI's API pricing before you budget. The practical lesson has not changed: cost control comes from routing each task to the cheapest model that handles it well, not from picking one vendor.
Which Should You Use for Common Automation Jobs?
Use the vendors' own positioning as a starting point, then test.
- • Classification, extraction and routing at volume: start with the small tier, Claude Haiku 5.5 or GPT-6 Luna. Both are positioned for exactly this work.
- • Customer service drafts and lead qualification: start with a mid tier, such as Claude Sonnet 5.5, Claude Opus 5.5 or GPT-6.1 Sol, and compare tone and accuracy on real transcripts.
- • Long-running agents and complex coding: Anthropic positions Opus 5.5 and Fable 5.1 for this, and OpenAI positions GPT-6 Astra for it.
- • Document review: either, given both context windows. Test on your own documents and check the answers against the source.
- • Image generation or live voice: OpenAI, since its catalog includes dedicated models for both.
Why Is the Answer Often Both?
Serious automation stacks route tasks rather than standardizing on one model. With multimodal input, long context and MCP on both sides, the technical cost of running two providers is low, and the benefit is that each job goes to the model that does it best for the price.
Think of it the way photographers think about lenses. You do not pick one lens for every shot. Claude and GPT are both good lenses, and the right one depends on the job.
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