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Comparison · 2 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Claude Sonnet 5 vs Grok 4.6

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

  1. Anthropic

    Claude Sonnet 5

    Released Jun 30, 2026

    66/100
    • ECI156.3
    • Price$2.00 / $10.00
    • Context1M
    Full specs Remove Claude Sonnet 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

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01 — Verdict

Too close to call

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 1 points (Claude Sonnet 5 66/100, Grok 4.6 65/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Grok 4.6 for raw capability and Claude Sonnet 5 for long inputs. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityGrok 4.6Capabilities Index (ECI): Grok 4.6 156.6 · Claude Sonnet 5 156.3
  • Lowest priceGrok 4.6Grok 4.6 $3.00 · Claude Sonnet 5 $4.00 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextClaude Sonnet 5Claude Sonnet 5 1,000,000 · Grok 4.6 500,000 tokens
  • Widest inputsClaude Sonnet 5Claude Sonnet 5: Text, Images, PDFs · Grok 4.6: Text, Images
  • Self-hostingNo open weightsBoth are available only through APIs
How the score is built
MeasureWeightClaude Sonnet 5Grok 4.6
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%8686
Price25%2127
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 Sonnet 5 vs Grok 4.6 specifications side by side
SpecificationClaude Sonnet 5AnthropicGrok 4.6xAI
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)156.3156.6 (best)
ECI rank#23 of 148#19 of 148 (best)
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions90.5%94.0% (best)
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics65.6%66.0% (best)
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics94.7%99.2% (best)
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions33.7%49.3% (best)
Price per million tokens
Input$2.00$2.00
Output$10.00$6.00 (best)
Cached input$0.20 (best)$0.50
Blended (3:1)$4.00$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-sonnet-5grok-4.6
API providers38 (best)29
ReleasedJun 30, 2026Aug 12, 2026
Knowledge cutoffJan 31, 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 Sonnet 5$40.00
  • Grok 4.6$32.00
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Claude Sonnet 5 or Grok 4.6?

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 1 points (Claude Sonnet 5 66/100, Grok 4.6 65/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Grok 4.6 for raw capability and Claude Sonnet 5 for long inputs. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 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 Sonnet 5 costs $2.00 input / $10.00 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 $4.00 for Claude Sonnet 5 (1.3× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Grok 4.6 scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Grok 4.6 156.6 (#19 of 148) and Claude Sonnet 5 156.3 (#23 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (154.7–158.9 vs 153.6–158.8), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Grok 4.6 94.0%, Claude Sonnet 5 90.5%; FrontierMath Tiers 1–3 — Grok 4.6 66.0%, Claude Sonnet 5 65.6%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Grok 4.6 99.2%, Claude Sonnet 5 94.7%; SimpleQA Verified — Grok 4.6 49.3%, Claude Sonnet 5 33.7%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Claude Sonnet 5 and Grok 4.6 yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Grok 4.6 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 Sonnet 5 has the largest context window at 1,000,000 tokens, against 500,000 for Grok 4.6. Maximum output per response: Claude Sonnet 5 up to 128,000, Grok 4.6 up to 500,000 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

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

Are any of these open source?

No. Claude Sonnet 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 Sonnet 5 came out Jun 30, 2026. Knowledge cutoff: Claude Sonnet 5 Jan 31, 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

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