Claude Opus 5.5 Effort Levels Tested: Low to Max

Claude Opus 5.5, an AI model, offers five levels of effort, ranging from low to max, each with varying costs and processing times. The model's default setting is medium effort, but users can manually adjust it using the --effort option in Claude Code or by setting the effort value in the API. To test the model's performance at each effort level, a game development prompt was run five times, with results measured in terms of time taken, output tokens, total tokens, and cost.

The low effort level took only 32 seconds and cost $0.48, generating a simple brick-breaker game with basic features. Medium effort, the default setting, cost $0.56 and took 52 seconds, adding rainbow bricks, a pause button, and level-clear screens. High effort cost $0.75 and took 1 minute and 50 seconds, introducing particle effects, a saved best score, and high-quality design.

Xhigh effort, costing $1.36 and taking 4 minutes and 32 seconds, added sound effects, level names, screen shaking, and victory fireworks. Max effort, the most expensive at $5.25 and taking 22 minutes and 22 seconds, included sound effects, level names, an invader-shaped level two, screen shake, and victory fireworks.

Despite the increased time and cost, higher effort levels resulted in more polished and feature-rich games. The differences in output quality became more apparent as the effort level increased, with max effort providing the most advanced game-building capabilities. Low effort was suitable for quick prototypes and testing, while high and max effort were better suited for polished, feature-rich games.