Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) vs Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoning) 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 (Low, Default Fallbac… scores 21.9 points higher (35.9 vs 14.0) but costs 1.9× as much to run the benchmark ($482 vs $250; both mid-range class). Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallbac… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoning).
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) | Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 35.9 | 14.0 | −61.0% Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoni… is 61.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $482.13 | $250.37 | −48.1% Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoni… is 48.1% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 5.85s | 5.86s | +0.2% Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoni… is 0.2% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $1.25 / $2.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoning) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback): 61.0% less intelligence, 48.1% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 0.2% slower 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.
- Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback)Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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