Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) vs DeepSeek V3 0324
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or DeepSeek V3 0324 by DeepSeek? 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 (Low, Default Fallbac… scores 26.2 points higher (35.9 vs 9.7) but costs 24× as much to run the benchmark ($482 vs $19.9; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallbac… when you need intelligence above 9.7, and DeepSeek V3 0324 when 9.7 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) | DeepSeek V3 0324 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 35.9 | 9.7 | −73.0% DeepSeek V3 0324 is 73.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $482.13 | $19.87 | −95.9% DeepSeek V3 0324 is 95.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 5.91s | 4.39s | −25.7% DeepSeek V3 0324 is 25.7% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.24 / $0.90 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
DeepSeek V3 0324 vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback): 73.0% less intelligence, 95.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 25.7% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
- DeepSeek V3 0324 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback)DeepSeek V3 0324Today'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-5-5-low/deepseek-v3-0324 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5-low/deepseek-v3-0324?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill