Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Grok 4.6 (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Grok 4.6 (Medium) 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 (Max, Default Fallbac… scores 13.2 points higher (56.0 vs 42.8) but costs 4.7× as much to run the benchmark ($7260 vs $1557; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallbac… when you need intelligence above 42.8, and Grok 4.6 (Medium) when 42.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | Grok 4.6 (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.0 | 42.8 | −23.6% Grok 4.6 (Medium) is 23.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $7,259.50 | $1,557.04 | −78.6% Grok 4.6 (Medium) is 78.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 380.92s | 33.09s | −91.3% Grok 4.6 (Medium) is 91.3% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Grok 4.6 (Medium) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback): 23.6% less intelligence, 78.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 91.3% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
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.
- Grok 4.6 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback)Grok 4.6 (Medium)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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