Anthropic introduced Claude Sonnet 5.5 on 28 September, reporting improvements in speed and efficiency over Sonnet 5. For people using AI for everyday tasks, the release raises a practical question: how to assess those gains in the work they need to complete.
Token prices and task costs
Anthropic distinguishes the price per unit of processed text from the cost of completing a task. A tool might need fewer steps or less text to respond. That does not, by itself, mean a subscription becomes cheaper. When comparing a release, check what each figure measures.
A comparison you can check
My suggestion is to choose a task whose outcome you can assess. For example, summarise a page of notes without personal information. Use the same document and request the same length from each model. This provides a common starting point and lets you check each response against the original.
Before reading the results, write down what a good summary should include. List the essential ideas and any facts that must remain unchanged. That short brief helps you assess the content without letting an attractive presentation make the decision for you.
Count the work of correcting
Note omissions, altered facts and sentences you need to rewrite. If you measure time, start when you prepare the request and finish when you have something you would actually use. A fast answer that needs extensive correction may not meet your needs.
Repeating a task can reveal differences, but a personal comparison cannot evaluate every possible use. A tool may help you organise ideas while being less suitable for another activity. Describe what happened in the specific task rather than making a universal claim.
What to record when comparing tools
The announcement’s figures come from Anthropic’s evaluations. To assess a tool’s usefulness for a particular task, record what you asked it to do, what it produced and which corrections were needed.
Verification note
For this publication, I used an environment that allows queries across several AI models to support verification.