Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) vs Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) by Anthropic or Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite 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
Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) scores 22.6 points higher (38.2 vs 15.6) but costs 45× as much to run the benchmark ($6998 vs $156; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) when you need intelligence above 15.6, and Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite when 15.6 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) | Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 38.2 | 15.6 | −59.2% Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is 59.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,998.25 | $155.87 | −97.8% Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is 97.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 184.22s | 6.15s | −96.7% Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is 96.7% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.25 / $1.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Max): 59.2% less intelligence, 97.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 96.7% 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.
- Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Max) scores 38.10 for $122.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Max)Gemini 3.1 Flash-LiteToday's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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