Everyone argues "Claude Code or Codex" — and the honest answer is "both, on different tasks". Codex saves tokens, Claude writes more thoroughly. Here's what to send where so you don't torch your budget 🔥
Numbers from the price list (checked 2026-07-14): GPT-5.5 — the default model in Codex — costs $5 / $30 per 1M tokens (input/output), Claude Opus 4.8 — $5 / $25, Claude Fable 5 — $10 / $50. The Codex CLI is OpenAI's open agent (Rust, Apache-2.0, ~98k stars on GitHub), installed against a ChatGPT subscription or your own API key. Below: who's cheaper where, which tasks to hand to whom, and at the end — routing inside the Claude line-up itself.
Step 1 — Tokens: Codex is thriftier, Claude is more thorough
On the same task Claude Code spends roughly 3–4 times more tokens than Codex. In an open Figma→code test (Morphllm/Builder.io, April 2026) Codex ate 1.5M tokens against 6.2M for Claude Code — that same ~4x. An important caveat: that measurement still ran GPT-5.3-Codex against Opus 4.6, so the exact multiplier depends on model versions and the task — treat it as a reference point, not a law.
Why it happens: GPT-5.5 answers more tersely — it doesn't over-explain or write filler, and across a long agentic loop with dozens of tool calls that terseness adds up. Claude, by contrast, puts more in on the first pass: comments, error handling, edge cases — and by developers' accounts its code needs rework less often. The key point: 4x is about tokens spent, not about value per token.
How to tell it worked: you're comparing not "price per token" but the final bill for a specific task — because what decides it is the product of "price × how many tokens went out".
Common mistakes:
- Taking "~4x" as a law. It's one third-party benchmark on older models — measure it on your own tasks.
- Picking a tool by price per token rather than by the cost of a solved task.
Step 2 — Which tasks to hand to whom
Codex (GPT-5.5) — when economy and autonomy matter:
- long agentic runs with lots of tool calls and terminal commands;
- mass refactors, bug fixes, running tests, DevOps routine;
- tasks where you don't want to burn a week's limit on verbosity.
GPT-5.5 is OpenAI's top model and the default in Codex; context is ~1M tokens.
Claude Code (Opus / Fable) — when thoroughness and the cost of a mistake matter:
- code that needs edge cases and error handling right the first time, with less rework;
- security reviews and plans for complex features — on Fable (see Step 3);
- architectural decisions where the quality of the analysis matters more than saving tokens.
An honest nuance on price: a GPT-5.5 output token ($30 per 1M) is actually more expensive than Opus's ($25). Codex wins not on price per token but by spending fewer tokens. That's why the final bill per task often comes out cheaper — but not because it's "cheaper per token".
How to tell it worked: you run routine work and long loops through Codex, and high-stakes code and reviews through Claude; the choice follows the task, not your habit of using one tool.
Common mistakes:
- Dragging high-stakes code into Codex to save money — you'll save tokens and get more rework.
- Keeping everything on Claude "out of habit" and then being surprised by token spend on routine work.
Step 3 — Inside Claude: Opus by default, Fable selectively, opusplan for coding
Once you've decided the task is a "Claude one", pick the model within the line-up:
- Opus 4.8 — the default, the workhorse. Code generation, refactoring, bug fixes — same result as Fable, at half the price.
/model opus. - Fable 5 — selectively, exactly twice the price of Opus ($10/$50 against $5/$25). By Artemy Miller's analysis it pays for itself on three tasks: (1) security review of your own code, (2) an implementation plan several steps ahead, (3) walking through the user journey. Switch it on for the task — and back to Opus.
/model fable. - opusplan — for coding with planning: Opus thinks in plan mode, and Claude Code switches the implementation over to Sonnet (faster and cheaper).
/model opusplan.
Fable's gotchas (honestly):
- Frame a security review as defending your own repository ("find vulnerabilities in my code"), not as an attack ("write an exploit") — Fable has strict cyber classifiers: in Claude Code an "attacking" request quietly falls back to a weaker model, and on the API it comes back as
stop_reason: refusal. And officially Fable's gains in bug finding do NOT extend to security analysis — that's the author's heuristic, not a guarantee. - Fable requires 30-day data retention: under strict zero-data-retention it's hidden in
/model, and on the API such a request returns a 400.
🆘 Rescue prompt
Paste this for yourself (or straight to the agent) as a rule for picking the tool and model per task:
Task: <describe the task>.
Pick the tool and model by this rule:
- a long agentic run, terminal/DevOps, a mass refactor or bug fixes,
where saving tokens matters → Codex (GPT-5.5), it's terser;
- code with a high cost of error, where edge cases have to be right the first time,
architecture → Claude Code on Opus 4.8;
- security review of my own code / a plan for a complex feature / the user journey
→ Claude Code on Fable 5 (expensive, but it pays off);
- coding with a separate planning phase → the opusplan mode (Opus plans, Sonnet writes).
Answer in one line: tool + model — and why.
💎 Depth and value
- Token efficiency ≠ quality. Codex saves tokens through terseness; Claude spends more because it does more work per pass (error handling, edge cases, less rework). Count the cost of the TASK: price per token × number of tokens. The "~4x" figure is a third-party benchmark (Morphllm/Builder.io, Figma→code: Codex 1.5M vs Claude Code 6.2M), and on earlier models at that (GPT-5.3-Codex vs Opus 4.6), not a universal law. Verify it on your own work.
- The prices, honestly (2026-07-14): GPT-5.5 — $5/$30, Opus 4.8 — $5/$25, Fable 5 — $10/$50 per 1M tokens (input/output). A GPT-5.5 output token costs more than an Opus one — Codex's savings live purely in token volume, not in the per-unit price.
- A Codex gotcha: GPT-5.5 is the Codex default only when you sign in with a ChatGPT account; with your own API key (BYOK) it isn't available yet, and Codex falls back to GPT-5.2-Codex. If you're budgeting on your own key, that changes the price picture.
- Inside Claude the rule stands: Opus by default, Fable only for security review / planning / the user journey, opusplan for coding. For API access and Anthropic's current prices, see the "Anthropic API" card in the qvib base.