Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) vs Granite 4.2 3B
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Granite 4.2 3B 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 5.5 (High, Default Fallba… scores 37.7 points higher (46.8 vs 9.1) but costs 69× as much to run the benchmark ($1027 vs $14.9; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallba… when you need intelligence above 9.1, and Granite 4.2 3B when 9.1 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) | Granite 4.2 3B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 46.8 | 9.1 | −80.6% Granite 4.2 3B is 80.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,027.40 | $14.91 | −98.5% Granite 4.2 3B is 98.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 15.86s | 55.67s | +251.0% Granite 4.2 3B is 251.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.03 / $0.12 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Granite 4.2 3B vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback): 80.6% less intelligence, 98.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 251.0% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
- Granite 4.2 3B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback)Granite 4.2 3BToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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