Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhigh) vs DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhigh) by Anthropic or DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) by DeepSeek? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max)
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhigh): 14.8% more intelligence, 79.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 44.2% faster end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhigh) | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 34.4 | 39.5 | +14.8% DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (… is 14.8% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $3,255.40 | $671.96 | −79.4% DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (… is 79.4% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 26.92s | 15.03s | −44.2% DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (… is 44.2% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.29 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhigh)DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights 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-xhigh/deepseek-v4-1-flash · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-xhigh/deepseek-v4-1-flash?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill