Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) vs DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (High)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) by Anthropic or DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (High) by DeepSeek? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) scores 3.7 points higher (28.1 vs 24.4) but costs 10× as much to run the benchmark ($1218 vs $121; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) when you need intelligence above 24.4, and DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (High) when 24.4 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) | DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 28.1 | 24.4 | −13.2% DeepSeek V4 Flash 042… is 13.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,218.17 | $121.20 | −90.1% DeepSeek V4 Flash 042… is 90.1% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 9.17s | Not reported | — not comparable |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.11 / $0.23 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (High) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium): 13.2% less intelligence, 90.1% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and end-to-end time not fully reported.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Flash scores 37.90 for $110.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium)DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (High)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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