ZMIME
Comparison · 2 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Claude Opus 5 vs Grok 4.6

Too close to call on our weighted score (Claude Opus 5 66, Grok 4.6 65). The right pick depends on what you value most.

  1. Anthropic

    Claude Opus 5

    Released Jul 24, 2026

    66/100
    • ECI162.9
    • Price$5.00 / $25.00
    • Context1M
    Full specs Remove Claude Opus 5

  2. xAI

    Grok 4.6

    Released Aug 12, 2026

    65/100
    • ECI156.6
    • Price$2.00 / $6.00
    • Context500K
    Full specs Remove Grok 4.6

  3. Add a model

    Make it a three-way comparison.

01 — Verdict

Too close to call

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within a point (Claude Opus 5 66/100, Grok 4.6 65/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Claude Opus 5 for raw capability and Grok 4.6 on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityClaude Opus 5Capabilities Index (ECI): Claude Opus 5 162.9 · Grok 4.6 156.6
  • Lowest priceGrok 4.6Grok 4.6 $3.00 · Claude Opus 5 $10.00 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextClaude Opus 5Claude Opus 5 1,000,000 · Grok 4.6 500,000 tokens
  • Widest inputsClaude Opus 5Claude Opus 5: Text, Images, PDFs · Grok 4.6: Text, Images
  • Self-hostingNo open weightsBoth are available only through APIs
How the score is built
MeasureWeightClaude Opus 5Grok 4.6
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%9486
Price25%227
Inputs & features15%8070
Context window10%6048
Overall100%66/10065/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.

Claude Opus 5 vs Grok 4.6 specifications side by side
SpecificationClaude Opus 5AnthropicGrok 4.6xAI
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)162.9 (best)156.6
ECI rank#5 of 148 (best)#19 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions93.9%94.0% (best)
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics85.6% (best)66.0%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics98.9%99.2% (best)
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions59.9% (best)49.3%
Price per million tokens
Input$5.00$2.00 (best)
Output$25.00$6.00 (best)
Cached input$0.50$0.50
Blended (3:1)$10.00$3.00 (best)
Long-context rateSame rateOver 200K: $4.00 / $12.00
Price sourceOfficial Anthropic APIOfficial xAI API
Limits
Context window1,000,000 tokens (best)500,000 tokens
Max output128,000 tokens500,000 tokens (best)
Inputs and features
TextYesYes
ImagesYesYes
PDFsYesNo
AudioNoNo
VideoNoNo
ReasoningYeslow · medium · high · xhigh · maxYeslow · medium · high · xhigh
Tool callingYesYes
Structured outputYesYes
Availability
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
API model IDclaude-opus-5grok-4.6
API providers35 (best)29
ReleasedJul 24, 2026Aug 12, 2026
Knowledge cutoffMay 2026Feb 1, 2026
03 — Cost

What would a month cost?

Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.

  • Claude Opus 5$100.00
  • Grok 4.6$32.00
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Claude Opus 5 or Grok 4.6?

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within a point (Claude Opus 5 66/100, Grok 4.6 65/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Claude Opus 5 for raw capability and Grok 4.6 on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 5 or Grok 4.6?

Grok 4.6 is cheaper at $2.00 input / $6.00 output per million tokens (official xAI API price). Claude Opus 5 costs $5.00 input / $25.00 output per million tokens (official Anthropic API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $3.00 per million tokens for Grok 4.6 versus $10.00 for Claude Opus 5 (3.3× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Claude Opus 5 scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Claude Opus 5 162.9 (#5 of 148) and Grok 4.6 156.6 (#19 of 148). Their confidence ranges do not overlap (160.2–166.7 vs 154.7–158.9), so the gap is a real one. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Grok 4.6 94.0%, Claude Opus 5 93.9%; FrontierMath Tiers 1–3 — Claude Opus 5 85.6%, Grok 4.6 66.0%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Grok 4.6 99.2%, Claude Opus 5 98.9%; SimpleQA Verified — Claude Opus 5 59.9%, Grok 4.6 49.3%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Claude Opus 5 and Grok 4.6 yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Claude Opus 5 leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. Both support tool calling for agent workflows.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Opus 5 has the largest context window at 1,000,000 tokens, against 500,000 for Grok 4.6. Maximum output per response: Claude Opus 5 up to 128,000, Grok 4.6 up to 500,000 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Claude Opus 5 accepts text, images and PDFs; Grok 4.6 accepts text and images. Claude Opus 5 handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

No. Claude Opus 5 and Grok 4.6 are proprietary and only available through APIs and apps.

Which is newer?

Grok 4.6 is the newest, released Aug 12, 2026. Claude Opus 5 came out Jul 24, 2026. Knowledge cutoff: Claude Opus 5 May 2026, Grok 4.6 Feb 1, 2026.

How do you decide the winner?

Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Oct 4, 2026.

05 — Keep comparing

Related comparisons