Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, 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 2026-11-03.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) scores 8.1 points higher (57.7 vs 49.6) but costs 2.0× as much to run the benchmark ($5903 vs $2903; both flagship class). Pick Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallb….
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 49.6 | 57.7 | +16.3% Gemini 4 Carbon (Medi… is 16.3% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,902.50 | $5,903.03 | +103.4% Gemini 4 Carbon (Medi… is 2.0× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 41.55s | 11.62s | −72.0% Gemini 4 Carbon (Medi… is 72.0% faster |
| 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 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 16.3% more intelligence, 103.4% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 72.0% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 54.50 for $1124.
- Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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