Opus 5.5 vs Haiku 5.5: same prompt, $25 vs $2 voxel island
Given the same prompt for a floating voxel island with a pagoda and cherry blossoms, Opus 5.5 ($25) and Haiku 5.5 ($2) each produced a scene, and the author asks whether the 12x price gap is worth it.
holy sh*t. same prompt. Opus 5.5 cost me $25. Haiku 5.5 cost $2. one of these is 12x cheaper and I’m genuinely not sure it matters ↓ Same prompt, zero edits. a floating voxel island with a pagoda and cherry blossoms. Opus 5.5 on the left ($25), Haiku 5.5 on the right ($2). Opus went all in: the glow under the island, detail in every tier of the pagoda, the lighting, the little torii gates. it’s gorgeous. now look at the $2 one. Haiku got the whole thing: the island, the pagoda, the blossoms, the shape. for a twelfth of the price. so here’s the question nobody wants to answer out loud: is the extra detail worth 12x? or is “good enough for $2” the actual story of 2026? a year ago Haiku couldn’t do this at all. now it’s close enough to make you hesitate at checkout. $25 Opus or $2 Haiku - which one are you shipping? follow me - I’m dropping the exact prompt for both soon, and only to people following
This post quotes another post: “GPT-6 Astra vs Opus 5.5: same prompts, animal shots compared”