Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max) by DeepSeek? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fall… scores 6.5 points higher (40.8 vs 34.3) but costs 3.1× as much to run the benchmark ($622 vs $200; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fall… when you need intelligence above 34.3, and DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max) when 34.3 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) | DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 40.8 | 34.3 | −15.9% DeepSeek V4 Flash 073… is 15.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $622.28 | $199.63 | −67.9% DeepSeek V4 Flash 073… is 67.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 5.98s | 17.94s | +200.0% DeepSeek V4 Flash 073… is 200.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.14 / $0.28 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback): 15.9% less intelligence, 67.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 200.0% slower end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
- DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh) scores 41.20 for $158.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5-medium/deepseek-v4-flash · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5-medium/deepseek-v4-flash?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill