Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs Grok 4.3 (High)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Grok 4.3 (High) 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
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fall… scores 15.9 points higher (40.8 vs 24.9) but costs 1.7× as much to run the benchmark ($622 vs $363; premium vs mid-range cost classes). Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fall… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Grok 4.3 (High).
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) | Grok 4.3 (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 40.8 | 24.9 | −39.0% Grok 4.3 (High) is 39.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $622.28 | $363.24 | −41.6% Grok 4.3 (High) is 41.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 5.98s | 27.84s | +365.6% Grok 4.3 (High) is 365.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $1.25 / $2.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Grok 4.3 (High) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback): 39.0% less intelligence, 41.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 365.6% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
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.
- Grok 4.3 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback)Grok 4.3 (High)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5-medium/grok-4-3 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5-medium/grok-4-3?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill