Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) vs Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) by Anthropic or Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoning) by SpaceXAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) scores 6.7 points higher (20.7 vs 14.0) but costs 6.0× as much to run the benchmark ($1501 vs $250; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 14.0, and Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoning) when 14.0 is enough.
| Metric | Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) | Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 20.7 | 14.0 | −32.4% Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoni… is 32.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,501.22 | $250.37 | −83.3% Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoni… is 83.3% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 21.71s | 5.86s | −73.0% Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoni… is 73.0% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $3.00 / $15.0 | $1.25 / $2.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoning) vs Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning): 32.4% less intelligence, 83.3% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 73.0% 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.
- Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning)Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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