Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) vs Granite 4.2 30B
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) by Anthropic or Granite 4.2 30B by IBM? 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 Sonnet 4.6 (Max) scores 17.4 points higher (30.1 vs 12.7) but costs 44× as much to run the benchmark ($4925 vs $111; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) when you need intelligence above 12.7, and Granite 4.2 30B when 12.7 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) | Granite 4.2 30B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 30.1 | 12.7 | −57.8% Granite 4.2 30B is 57.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,924.80 | $110.83 | −97.7% Granite 4.2 30B is 97.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 104.36s | 57.71s | −44.7% Granite 4.2 30B is 44.7% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $3.00 / $15.0 | $0.16 / $0.65 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Granite 4.2 30B vs Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max): 57.8% less intelligence, 97.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 44.7% 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.
- Granite 4.2 30B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Flash scores 37.90 for $110.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max)Granite 4.2 30BToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights 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/granite-4-2-30b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-4-6-adaptive/granite-4-2-30b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill