Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) vs Kimi K3.1 Pro
Which is better for the money: Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) by Anthropic or Kimi K3.1 Pro by Kimi? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 34.4 points higher (55.1 vs 20.7) but costs 2.1× as much to run the benchmark ($3117 vs $1501; flagship vs premium cost classes). Pick Kimi K3.1 Pro when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning).
| Metric | Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) | Kimi K3.1 Pro | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 20.7 | 55.1 | +166.2% Kimi K3.1 Pro is 2.7× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,501.22 | $3,117.31 | +107.7% Kimi K3.1 Pro is 2.1× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 20.84s | 42.64s | +104.6% Kimi K3.1 Pro is 104.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $3.00 / $15.0 | $2.00 / $10.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Kimi K3.1 Pro vs Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning): 166.2% more intelligence, 107.7% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 104.6% slower 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.
- Kimi K3.1 Pro is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning)Kimi K3.1 ProToday's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-4-5-sonnet-thinking/kimi-k3-1-pro · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-4-5-sonnet-thinking/kimi-k3-1-pro?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill