Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) vs Grok 4.6 (Low)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Grok 4.6 (Low) by SpaceXAI? 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 11.7 points higher (46.8 vs 35.1) but costs 1.7× as much to run the benchmark ($1027 vs $614; both premium class). Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallba… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Grok 4.6 (Low).
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) | Grok 4.6 (Low) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 46.8 | 35.1 | −25.0% Grok 4.6 (Low) is 25.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,027.40 | $613.92 | −40.2% Grok 4.6 (Low) is 40.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 16.50s | 13.22s | −19.9% Grok 4.6 (Low) is 19.9% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Grok 4.6 (Low) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback): 25.0% less intelligence, 40.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 19.9% faster 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.
- Grok 4.6 (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback)Grok 4.6 (Low)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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