GPT-5 vs Claude Sonnet 4.6
Complete comparison: pricing, context windows, speed, quality, and use cases. Plus an interactive calculator to see which is cheaper for YOUR workload.
Head-to-Head Comparison
| Feature | GPT-5 | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Input Price | $1.25/M tokens | $3.00/M tokens |
| Output Price | $10.00/M tokens | $15.00/M tokens |
| Context Window | 272K tokens | 1M tokens |
| Max Output | 16K tokens | 64K tokens |
| Speed (tokens/sec) | ~120 t/s | ~80 t/s |
| Knowledge Cutoff | Early 2025 | Early 2025 |
| Vision / Multimodal | Yes | Yes |
| Function Calling | Yes | Yes |
| Streaming | Yes | Yes |
| Batch API | Yes (50% off) | Yes (50% off) |
| JSON Mode | Yes | Yes (structured output) |
| Coding (HumanEval) | 92.4% | 93.7% |
| Reasoning (MATH) | 78.6% | 76.2% |
| Overall Quality | Excellent | Excellent |
💰 Cost Calculator: Which is Cheaper for You?
Enter your monthly usage to see exact costs for each model.
🏆 The Verdict
Choose GPT-5 if: You want the lowest cost, fastest response times, and your context needs are under 272K tokens. GPT-5 is 58% cheaper on input tokens and 33% cheaper on output tokens. Best for high-volume workloads, chatbots, content generation, and cost-sensitive applications.
Choose Claude Sonnet 4.6 if: You need a massive 1M context window, longer outputs (64K vs 16K), or you prioritize coding quality. The extra cost is justified for complex reasoning tasks, large document analysis, and code-heavy workflows where context window matters.
Best strategy: Use both. Route simple, high-volume tasks to GPT-5 (cheaper, faster) and complex reasoning/long-context tasks to Claude Sonnet 4.6 (larger context, better code quality). This multi-model approach saves 30-50% vs using a single model for everything.
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