Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) vs GPT-6 Astra (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) by Anthropic or GPT-6 Astra (Medium) by OpenAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
GPT-6 Astra (Medium) scores 28.9 points higher (49.6 vs 20.7) but costs 1.6× as much to run the benchmark ($2434 vs $1501; flagship vs premium cost classes). Pick GPT-6 Astra (Medium) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning).
| Metric | Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) | GPT-6 Astra (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 20.7 | 49.6 | +139.6% GPT-6 Astra (Medium) is 2.4× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,501.22 | $2,434.12 | +62.1% GPT-6 Astra (Medium) is 62.1% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 21.53s | 13.89s | −35.5% GPT-6 Astra (Medium) is 35.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $3.00 / $15.0 | $10.0 / $50.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
GPT-6 Astra (Medium) vs Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning): 139.6% more intelligence, 62.1% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 35.5% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- GPT-6 Astra (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning)GPT-6 Astra (Medium)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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