Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) by Google? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-11-02.
Depends on your budget
Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) scores 27.4 points higher (57.7 vs 30.3) but costs 8.7× as much to run the benchmark ($5903 vs $679; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) when you need intelligence above 30.3, and Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fall… when 30.3 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) | Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 30.3 | 57.7 | +90.4% Gemini 4 Carbon (Medi… is 90.4% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $679.16 | $5,903.03 | +769.2% Gemini 4 Carbon (Medi… is 8.7× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 6.13s | Not reported | — not comparable |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $4.00 / $20.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback): 90.4% more intelligence, 769.2% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and end-to-end time not fully reported.
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 $573.
- Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5-medium/gemini-4-carbon-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5-medium/gemini-4-carbon-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill