Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) vs Kimi K3 (Max)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Kimi K3 (Max) by Kimi? 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
Kimi K3 (Max) scores 7.7 points higher (43.6 vs 35.9) but costs 7.6× as much to run the benchmark ($3658 vs $482; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Kimi K3 (Max) 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) | Kimi K3 (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 35.9 | 43.6 | +21.4% Kimi K3 (Max) is 21.4% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $482.13 | $3,658.07 | +658.7% Kimi K3 (Max) is 7.6× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 5.94s | 56.00s | +842.8% Kimi K3 (Max) is 842.8% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $3.00 / $15.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Kimi K3 (Max) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback): 21.4% more intelligence, 658.7% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 842.8% 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.
- Kimi K3 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback)Kimi K3 (Max)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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