Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Grok 4.6 (High)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Grok 4.6 (High) by SpaceXAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallb… scores 7.6 points higher (51.9 vs 44.3) but costs 1.1× as much to run the benchmark ($2177 vs $1963; flagship vs premium cost classes). Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallb… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Grok 4.6 (High).
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Grok 4.6 (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 51.9 | 44.3 | −14.6% Grok 4.6 (High) is 14.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,176.82 | $1,962.90 | −9.8% Grok 4.6 (High) is 9.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 32.10s | 31.72s | −1.2% Grok 4.6 (High) is 1.2% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Grok 4.6 (High) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 14.6% less intelligence, 9.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 1.2% 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, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
- Grok 4.6 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)Grok 4.6 (High)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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