Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) vs Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) by Anthropic or Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview by Google? 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
Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview scores 1.6 points higher (29.7 vs 28.1) but costs 1.6× as much to run the benchmark ($1935 vs $1218; both premium class). Pick Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium).
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) | Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 28.1 | 29.7 | +5.7% Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview is 5.7% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,218.17 | $1,935.39 | +58.9% Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview is 58.9% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 9.01s | 24.32s | +169.9% Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview is 169.9% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $2.00 / $12.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium): 5.7% more intelligence, 58.9% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 169.9% slower end-to-end.
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.
- Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium)Gemini 3.1 Pro PreviewToday's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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