Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) vs Grok 4.6 (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Grok 4.6 (Medium) by SpaceXAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Grok 4.6 (Medium) scores 6.9 points higher (42.8 vs 35.9) but costs 3.2× as much to run the benchmark ($1557 vs $482; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Grok 4.6 (Medium) when you need intelligence above 35.9, and Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallbac… when 35.9 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) | Grok 4.6 (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 35.9 | 42.8 | +19.2% Grok 4.6 (Medium) is 19.2% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $482.13 | $1,557.04 | +223.0% Grok 4.6 (Medium) is 3.2× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 5.94s | 33.09s | +457.1% Grok 4.6 (Medium) is 457.1% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Grok 4.6 (Medium) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback): 19.2% more intelligence, 223.0% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 457.1% 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 4.6 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback)Grok 4.6 (Medium)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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