Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) vs Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) by Anthropic or Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview by Google? 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
Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) scores 0.4 points higher (30.1 vs 29.7) but costs 2.5× as much to run the benchmark ($4925 vs $1935; flagship vs premium cost classes). Pick Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) | Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 30.1 | 29.7 | −1.3% Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview is 1.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,924.80 | $1,935.39 | −60.7% Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview is 60.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 75.21s | 24.90s | −66.9% Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview is 66.9% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $3.00 / $15.0 | $2.00 / $12.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview vs Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max): 1.3% less intelligence, 60.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 66.9% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max)Gemini 3.1 Pro PreviewToday'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-sonnet-4-6-adaptive/gemini-3-1-pro-preview · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-4-6-adaptive/gemini-3-1-pro-preview?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill