Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, 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.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium)
Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback): 6.5% more intelligence, 26.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 97.5% faster end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 54.2 | 57.7 | +6.5% Gemini 4 Carbon (Medi… is 6.5% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $7,980.63 | $5,903.03 | −26.0% Gemini 4 Carbon (Medi… is 26.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 459.65s | 11.62s | −97.5% Gemini 4 Carbon (Medi… is 97.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $4.00 / $20.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) scores 57.70 for $5903.
- Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback)Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5/gemini-4-carbon-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5/gemini-4-carbon-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill