Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) vs GLM-5.1 (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) by Anthropic or GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) by Z AI? 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 12.1 points higher (38.2 vs 26.1) but costs 4.7× as much to run the benchmark ($6998 vs $1487; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) when you need intelligence above 26.1, and GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) when 26.1 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) | GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 38.2 | 26.1 | −31.7% GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) is 31.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,998.25 | $1,486.78 | −78.8% GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) is 78.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 182.35s | 60.76s | −66.7% GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) is 66.7% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $1.28 / $4.07 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Max): 31.7% less intelligence, 78.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 66.7% 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.
- GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Max)GLM-5.1 (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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