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Model comparison

Claude Opus 5.5 vs Microsoft MAI-Thinking-1

Anthropic against Microsoft, compared on context, price, and verified benchmark results.

Catalog record checked September 26, 2026Individual provider fields may changeEvidence confidence: Medium — see receipts below

Anthropic

Claude Opus 5.5

Frontier

vs

Microsoft

Microsoft MAI-Thinking-1

Frontier

AI model capability comparison
SpecificationClaude Opus 5.5Microsoft MAI-Thinking-1
ProviderAnthropicMicrosoft
TierFrontierFrontier
Context windowWinner: 1M256K
Max outputWinner: 128K64K
Input / 1M tokens$4Winner: $2
Output / 1M tokens$20Winner: $8
WeightsClosedClosed
ParametersNot disclosedUnverified~1T total / 35B active (sparse MoE)
Reasoning levelsadaptiveNot verifiedUnverified
Modalitiestext, imagetext
API model idclaude-opus-5-5mai-thinking-1
ReleasedSeptember 22, 2026June 2, 2026
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index [max] (2026-09-26)57.6Not verifiedUnverified
Humanity's Last Exam [max] (2026-09-26)61.4Not verifiedUnverified
Terminal-Bench 4.0 [max] (2026-09-26)59.6Not verifiedUnverified
Terminal-Bench 4.0 [xhigh] (2026-09-22)66.4Not verifiedUnverified
AIME 2025 (2026-08-12)Not verifiedUnverified97
SWE-bench Verified (2026-06)Not verifiedUnverified73.5
GPQA Diamond (2026-06)Not verifiedUnverified84.2
Terminal-Bench 2.0 (2026-06)Not verifiedUnverified46

Prices are USD per million tokens at standard rates, excluding batch and caching discounts. Bold indicates the better figure where one is objectively better. Values we could not confirm from the provider are shown as “Not verified” rather than estimated.

Benchmark receipts

Where each score comes from, and how far it can be compared across models.

Pricing tiers

Claude Opus 5.5: $4/$20 per MTok, no long-context surcharge. Cache reads $0.20; 5-minute cache writes $5, 1-hour writes $8. Batch $2/$10; Fast mode $8/$40. Batches API allows 300K output with the output-300k-2026-03-24 beta header. Knowledge cutoff Jun 2026; retirement not before 2027-09-22.

Microsoft MAI-Thinking-1: Global Standard $2.00/$8.00 per MTok, cached input $0.20 (Azure Retail Prices API, effective 2026-08-01, uniform across 32 public regions; US Gov regions carry premiums). Still preview; Global Standard only, no PTU yet. 256K context with a 64K output cap that includes reasoning tokens. ~1T/35B sparse MoE; reasoning is always on (no effort levels). Microsoft's first true reasoning model, trained without OpenAI distillation.

FrontierRecord checked September 26, 2026

Claude Opus 5.5

Claude Opus 5.5 is Anthropic's default model for agentic coding and knowledge work — Anthropic says it performs near Fable 5.1 on most work at about 40% lower running cost than Opus 5, and it leads the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index v4.3.2.

Best for

  • Complex agentic coding
  • Enterprise knowledge work
  • Default frontier model

Watch out

Breaking changes from Opus 5: adaptive thinking cannot be disabled (effort runs low to max, default medium) and forced tool use returns an error. Verbose at max effort, so cap output on cost-sensitive routes.

FrontierRecord checked September 26, 2026

Microsoft MAI-Thinking-1

MAI-Thinking-1 is Microsoft's first in-house reasoning model, reducing dependence on OpenAI.

Best for

  • Enterprise (Azure)
  • Reasoning
  • Microsoft ecosystem

Watch out

Foundry-gated preview; no MAI-2 exists yet. Of the Build 2026 MAI wave, only MAI-Thinking-1 and MAI-Cyber-1-Flash ($0.60/$3.50, released 2026-07-27) have published token meters.

When the cheaper one wins

Microsoft MAI-Thinking-1 is cheaper on output at $8 per million tokens against $20 for Claude Opus 5.5 — about 2.5×. Use the cheaper tier for classification, extraction, summarisation, and any task where the expensive model’s extra score does not change the accepted output. The expensive one only pays if your hardest task actually fails on the cheap tier. These are standard-tier API rates, excluding batch and cache discounts.

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Evidence confidence: Medium

How strong and complete the evidence behind this comparison is — not a prediction of which model is better.

  • Pricing verified on both sides — Input and output rates are verified for both models.
  • 3/5 core specs verified on both sides — Not published for at least one side: parameter count, reasoning levels.
  • No shared named benchmark — No benchmark has been measured on both models.
  • Verified within the last 90 days — Newest catalog check was 2 days ago.
  • Both models carry source citations — Each side has at least two catalog sources on record.

Source receipts

Each catalog figure was checked against the provider or an independent second source on the date shown.

Related comparisons

Diving deeper on one model? Claude Opus 5.5 · Microsoft MAI-Thinking-1

Common questions

Claude Opus 5.5 vs Microsoft MAI-Thinking-1

Answered from the verified figures on this page rather than general guidance.

Is Claude Opus 5.5 or Microsoft MAI-Thinking-1 cheaper for input?
Microsoft MAI-Thinking-1 is cheaper at $2 per million input tokens, against $4 for Claude Opus 5.5 — roughly 2.0× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; Claude Opus 5.5 has tiered pricing: $4/$20 per MTok, no long-context surcharge. Cache reads $0.20; 5-minute cache writes $5, 1-hour writes $8. Batch $2/$10; Fast mode $8/$40. Batches API allows 300K output with the output-300k-2026-03-24 beta header. Knowledge cutoff Jun 2026; retirement not before 2027-09-22. Microsoft MAI-Thinking-1 has tiered pricing: Global Standard $2.00/$8.00 per MTok, cached input $0.20 (Azure Retail Prices API, effective 2026-08-01, uniform across 32 public regions; US Gov regions carry premiums). Still preview; Global Standard only, no PTU yet. 256K context with a 64K output cap that includes reasoning tokens. ~1T/35B sparse MoE; reasoning is always on (no effort levels). Microsoft's first true reasoning model, trained without OpenAI distillation.
Is Claude Opus 5.5 or Microsoft MAI-Thinking-1 cheaper for output?
Microsoft MAI-Thinking-1 is cheaper at $8 per million output tokens, against $20 for Claude Opus 5.5 — roughly 2.5× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; Claude Opus 5.5 has tiered pricing: $4/$20 per MTok, no long-context surcharge. Cache reads $0.20; 5-minute cache writes $5, 1-hour writes $8. Batch $2/$10; Fast mode $8/$40. Batches API allows 300K output with the output-300k-2026-03-24 beta header. Knowledge cutoff Jun 2026; retirement not before 2027-09-22. Microsoft MAI-Thinking-1 has tiered pricing: Global Standard $2.00/$8.00 per MTok, cached input $0.20 (Azure Retail Prices API, effective 2026-08-01, uniform across 32 public regions; US Gov regions carry premiums). Still preview; Global Standard only, no PTU yet. 256K context with a 64K output cap that includes reasoning tokens. ~1T/35B sparse MoE; reasoning is always on (no effort levels). Microsoft's first true reasoning model, trained without OpenAI distillation.
Which has the larger context window, Claude Opus 5.5 or Microsoft MAI-Thinking-1?
Claude Opus 5.5 accepts 1M tokens against 256K for Microsoft MAI-Thinking-1. This only matters if you routinely send very long documents or large codebases.
Should I use Claude Opus 5.5 or Microsoft MAI-Thinking-1?
Both sit in the frontier tier, so the choice usually comes down to price and context rather than capability. Claude Opus 5.5 suits complex agentic coding; Microsoft MAI-Thinking-1 suits enterprise (azure).

Next step

Choosing between them

The verified figures that separate this pair, computed from the catalog rather than restated boilerplate.

  • Input price: Microsoft MAI-Thinking-1 costs $2 per 1M tokens versus $4 for Claude Opus 5.5 — a 2x difference at the headline tier.
  • Context: Claude Opus 5.5 takes 1M against 256K for Microsoft MAI-Thinking-1 — only decisive if your prompts approach the smaller window.
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