Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) vs GLM-5.1 (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) by Anthropic or GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) by Z AI? 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
Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) scores 4.0 points higher (30.1 vs 26.1) but costs 3.3× as much to run the benchmark ($4925 vs $1487; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) when you need intelligence above 26.1, and GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) when 26.1 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) | GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 30.1 | 26.1 | −13.3% GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) is 13.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,924.80 | $1,486.78 | −69.8% GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) is 69.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 104.36s | 62.92s | −39.7% GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) is 39.7% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $3.00 / $15.0 | $1.28 / $4.07 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) vs Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max): 13.3% less intelligence, 69.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 39.7% 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.
- GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) 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)GLM-5.1 (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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