Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) vs DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) by Anthropic or DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max) 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 3.4 points higher (38.2 vs 34.8) but costs 6.5× as much to run the benchmark ($6998 vs $1081; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) when you need intelligence above 34.8, and DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max) when 34.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) | DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 38.2 | 34.8 | −8.9% DeepSeek V4 Flash Vis… is 8.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,998.25 | $1,081.42 | −84.5% DeepSeek V4 Flash Vis… is 84.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 182.35s | 15.35s | −91.6% DeepSeek V4 Flash Vis… is 91.6% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.44 / $1.32 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Max): 8.9% less intelligence, 84.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 91.6% 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 V4 Flash Vision (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Max)DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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