Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) by Google? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallbac… scores 47.1 points higher (56.0 vs 8.9) but costs 495× as much to run the benchmark ($7260 vs $14.7; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallbac… when you need intelligence above 8.9, and Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) when 8.9 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.0 | 8.9 | −84.1% Gemma 4 E4B (Reasonin… is 84.1% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $7,259.50 | $14.68 | −99.8% Gemma 4 E4B (Reasonin… is 99.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 360.53s | 57.75s | −84.0% Gemma 4 E4B (Reasonin… is 84.0% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.02 / $0.10 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback): 84.1% less intelligence, 99.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 84.0% faster end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5/gemma-4-e4b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5/gemma-4-e4b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill