Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) vs Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) by Anthropic or Gemini 3.5 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 16.0 points higher (38.2 vs 22.2) but costs 19× as much to run the benchmark ($6998 vs $366; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) when you need intelligence above 22.2, and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite when 22.2 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 38.2 | 22.2 | −41.9% Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 41.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,998.25 | $365.63 | −94.8% Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 94.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 190.29s | 9.51s | −95.0% Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 95.0% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.30 / $2.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Max): 41.9% less intelligence, 94.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 95.0% 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 3.5 Flash-Lite is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Max)Gemini 3.5 Flash-LiteToday's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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