Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) vs Grok 4.6 (High)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) by Anthropic or Grok 4.6 (High) by SpaceXAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Grok 4.6 (High) scores 16.2 points higher (44.3 vs 28.1) but costs 1.6× as much to run the benchmark ($1963 vs $1218; both premium class). Pick Grok 4.6 (High) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium).
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) | Grok 4.6 (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 28.1 | 44.3 | +57.7% Grok 4.6 (High) is 57.7% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,218.17 | $1,962.90 | +61.1% Grok 4.6 (High) is 61.1% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 9.02s | 31.72s | +251.7% Grok 4.6 (High) is 251.7% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Grok 4.6 (High) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium): 57.7% more intelligence, 61.1% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 251.7% 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.
- Grok 4.6 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium)Grok 4.6 (High)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-medium/grok-4-6 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-medium/grok-4-6?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill