Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) vs DeepSeek V3 0324
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) by Anthropic or DeepSeek V3 0324 by DeepSeek? 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 (Max) scores 28.5 points higher (38.2 vs 9.7) but costs 352× as much to run the benchmark ($6998 vs $19.9; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) when you need intelligence above 9.7, and DeepSeek V3 0324 when 9.7 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) | DeepSeek V3 0324 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 38.2 | 9.7 | −74.6% DeepSeek V3 0324 is 74.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,998.25 | $19.87 | −99.7% DeepSeek V3 0324 is 99.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 184.22s | 4.62s | −97.5% DeepSeek V3 0324 is 97.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.24 / $0.90 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
DeepSeek V3 0324 vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Max): 74.6% less intelligence, 99.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 97.5% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- DeepSeek V3 0324 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Max)DeepSeek V3 0324Today'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/deepseek-v3-0324 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5/deepseek-v3-0324?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill