Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) vs GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) by Anthropic or GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-reasoning) by OpenAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-27.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) scores 14.6 points higher (30.1 vs 15.5) but costs 214× as much to run the benchmark ($4925 vs $23.0; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) when you need intelligence above 15.5, and GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-reasoning) when 15.5 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) | GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 30.1 | 15.5 | −48.5% GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-rea… is 48.5% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,924.80 | $22.97 | −99.5% GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-rea… is 99.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 148.47s | 5.06s | −96.6% GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-rea… is 96.6% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $3.00 / $15.0 | $0.20 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-reasoning) vs Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max): 48.5% less intelligence, 99.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 96.6% 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.
- GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max)GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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