Pairwise benchmark snapshot · Aug 16, 2026

Claude Sonnet 5 vs Grok 4.6 benchmark

Name: Claude Sonnet 5 vs Grok 4.6 AI benchmark comparison
Creator: CompareLLM
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

This page compares Claude Sonnet 5 (Anthropic) and Grok 4.6 (xAI) using the latest snapshots we have as of Aug 16, 2026. On preference Elo, Grok 4.6 is ahead by 36 points (1,592 vs 1,556; seed-bootstrap (Aug 16, 2026)). On SWE-bench coding, Claude Sonnet 5 resolves 73.8% versus 69.1% (seed-bootstrap (Aug 16, 2026)). Claude Sonnet 5 streams faster (118 tok/s) while Grok 4.6 is the cheaper output token ($6/1M). Claude Sonnet 5 has the larger context window (1M tokens). Every cell below is a dated snapshot from a named public source — we do not invent missing scores, and we do not run SWE-bench ourselves.

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Anthropic

Claude Sonnet 5

Anthropic workhorse. Official $2/$10 per 1M tokens made permanent on Aug 10 2026.

Elo 1,556$10/1M out

xAI

Grok 4.6

xAI Aug 12 2026 post-training refresh of Grok 4.5. Same $2/$6 API price, 500k context, stronger agentic traces.

Elo 1,592$6/1M out

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Model A

Model B

Quick vs:vs Claude Opus 4.5 vs Claude Opus 4.6 vs Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Claude 3.7 Sonnet

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Matchup Breakdown

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Category wins across intelligence, speed, and pricing efficiency.

Claude Sonnet 5 (3)vsGrok 4.6 (5)

Claude Sonnet 5: 3W (38%)Overall: Grok 4.6Grok 4.6: 5W (62%)

← Claude Sonnet 52 tiesGrok 4.6 →

Grok 4.6 (4/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

Preference Elo, Coding proficiency, SWE-bench & LiveBench accuracy

Preference Elo

1,556vs1,592

Coding Elo

1,562vs1,568

SWE-bench

73.8%vs69.1%

LiveBench

70.4%vs71.4%

GPQA Diamond

82.8%vs84.6%

Claude Sonnet 5: 1WGrok 4.6: 4W

Claude Sonnet 5 (1/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

118 tok/svs118 tok/s

Time to first token

175 msvs195 ms

Claude Sonnet 5: 1WGrok 4.6: 0W

Tied (1/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$10/1Mvs$6/1M

Input price

$2/1Mvs$2/1M

Context window

1Mvs500k

Claude Sonnet 5: 1WGrok 4.6: 1W

Capability Matchup Radar

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

Each spoke is a skill. Farther from the center is better (0–100th percentile). Tap any dot to inspect details.

Tap any node to inspect

Percentile 0–100

Dimensional AdvantageEven 3–3

Preference Elo

Grok 4.6

36 pts advantage

Throughput Speed

Claude Sonnet 5

Equal tok/s

Price Efficiency

Grok 4.6

$4.00/1M cheaper

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

—

Elo

High is better

1,556

EloHigh is better

1,592+2%

Code Elo

High is better

1,562

Code EloHigh is better

1,568

LiveBench

High is better

70.4%

LiveBenchHigh is better

71.4%+1%

SWE-bench

High is better

+7%73.8%

SWE-benchHigh is better

69.1%

GPQA

High is better

82.8%

GPQAHigh is better

84.6%+2%

TTFT

Low is better

+11%175 ms

TTFTLow is better

195 ms

Speed

High is better

118 tok/s

SpeedHigh is better

118 tok/s

In $

Low is better

$2/1M

In $Low is better

$2/1M

Out $

Low is better

$10/1M

Out $Low is better

$6/1M+67%

Context

High is better

+100%1M

ContextHigh is better

500k

Interactive Simulator

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Simulate monthly production API costs based on published $/1M tokens.

Save up to 27% with Grok 4.6

Monthly Volume50M tokens/mo

Quick Presets:

Token Ratio (In vs Out)70% In / 30% Out

RAG / Search (10% out)Coding / Chat (50% out)

Claude Sonnet 5$220.00 / mo

In: $70.00Out: $150.00

Grok 4.6$160.00 / mo

In: $70.00Out: $90.00

Estimated Cost Delta

Grok 4.6 is estimated to save $60.00/month ($720/year).

Based on 50M tokens (30% gen)

Key Selection Recommendations

1
Claude Sonnet 5:Pick Claude Sonnet 5 when repo-level coding accuracy is the constraint.
2
Grok 4.6:Pick Grok 4.6 when you are optimizing output cost.
3
Claude Sonnet 5:Pick Claude Sonnet 5 when time-to-first-token matters more than peak Elo.

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsClaude Sonnet 5

Higher SWE-bench (73.8%).

High-volume chatGrok 4.6

Lower output list price ($6/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIClaude Sonnet 5

Lower TTFT (175 ms).

Long-document RAGClaude Sonnet 5

Larger window (1M).

Screenshots / visionGrok 4.6

Both accept images. Defaulting to the higher-Elo side (Grok 4.6).

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	Claude Sonnet 5	Higher SWE-bench (73.8%).
High-volume chat	Grok 4.6	Lower output list price ($6/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	Claude Sonnet 5	Lower TTFT (175 ms).
Long-document RAG	Claude Sonnet 5	Larger window (1M).
Screenshots / vision	Grok 4.6	Both accept images. Defaulting to the higher-Elo side (Grok 4.6).

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

View all news

compareAug 12, 2026

Grok vs ChatGPT: price and Elo, not a personality contest

Brand hub remaps to top xAI vs top OpenAI. After Aug 12 that is Grok 4.6 vs Sol.

launchAug 12, 2026

Grok 4.6 (Aug 12): post-training refresh, same $2/$6 list

xAI’s Aug 12 2026 refresh of Grok 4.5. 500k context. The Grok vs ChatGPT hub remaps here.

compareAug 10, 2026

Sonnet vs Opus in 2026: same family, different invoice

Usually Sonnet 5 vs Opus 5. Coding delta versus output $/1M. The workhorse question.

priceAug 10, 2026

Claude Sonnet 5 at $2/$10: the 2026 Anthropic workhorse

Aug 10 2026 made the $2/$10 list permanent. Sonnet is the default Claude unless the repo is actually on fire.

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LIVE

Anthropic

Claude Sonnet 5

Elo 1,556

LiveBench70.4%

SWE-bench73.8%

Speed118 tok/s

Output cost$10/1M

xAI

Grok 4.6

Elo 1,592

LiveBench71.4%

SWE-bench69.1%

Speed118 tok/s

Output cost$6/1M

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Claude Sonnet 5 or Grok 4.6?: Grok 4.6 has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,592). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.
Which is better at coding, Claude Sonnet 5 or Grok 4.6?: Claude Sonnet 5 leads SWE-bench at 73.8% vs 69.1%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.
Which is cheaper to run in production?: Grok 4.6 output tokens are $6/1M versus $10/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.
Which is faster, Claude Sonnet 5 or Grok 4.6?: Claude Sonnet 5 has the lower time-to-first-token (175 ms vs 195 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.
Which has the larger context window?: Claude Sonnet 5 accepts 1M tokens versus 500k.
Can I self-host either model?: Neither model is marked open-weights here. You are comparing hosted APIs.
Are these scores from CompareLLM’s own evals?: No. V1 aggregates public leaderboards (and optional first-party latency pings). Each cell names its source and date. Read /methodology.
What does preference Elo mean on this page?: Preference Elo is a crowd vote from LMArena / Arena. People see two hidden answers and pick the one they like more. The model that wins more often gets a higher Elo. That means people preferred it — not that it passed a school test. It is not SWE-bench, not accuracy, and not a number we invent. Claude Sonnet 5 and Grok 4.6 Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

All Claude Sonnet 5 matchups →|All Grok 4.6 matchups →

Claude Sonnet 5 vs Claude Sonnet 4.5 (previous sonnet)Grok 4.6 vs Grok 4 (previous grok)Claude Opus 4.5 vs Claude Sonnet 5 Claude Opus 4.6 vs Grok 4.6 Claude Opus 4.8 vs Grok 4.6 Claude Fable 5 vs Grok 4.6

Claude Sonnet 5 vs Grok 4.6 benchmark

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Matchup Breakdown

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Category wins across intelligence, speed, and pricing efficiency.

Claude Sonnet 5 (3)vsGrok 4.6 (5)

Claude Sonnet 5: 3W (38%)Overall: Grok 4.6Grok 4.6: 5W (62%)

← Claude Sonnet 52 tiesGrok 4.6 →

Grok 4.6 (4/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

Preference Elo, Coding proficiency, SWE-bench & LiveBench accuracy

Preference Elo

1,556vs1,592

Coding Elo

1,562vs1,568

SWE-bench

73.8%vs69.1%

LiveBench

70.4%vs71.4%

GPQA Diamond

82.8%vs84.6%

Claude Sonnet 5: 1WGrok 4.6: 4W

Claude Sonnet 5 (1/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

118 tok/svs118 tok/s

Time to first token

175 msvs195 ms

Claude Sonnet 5: 1WGrok 4.6: 0W

Tied (1/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$10/1Mvs$6/1M

Input price

$2/1Mvs$2/1M

Context window

1Mvs500k

Claude Sonnet 5: 1WGrok 4.6: 1W

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsClaude Sonnet 5

Higher SWE-bench (73.8%).

High-volume chatGrok 4.6

Lower output list price ($6/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIClaude Sonnet 5

Lower TTFT (175 ms).

Long-document RAGClaude Sonnet 5

Larger window (1M).

Screenshots / visionGrok 4.6

Both accept images. Defaulting to the higher-Elo side (Grok 4.6).

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	Claude Sonnet 5	Higher SWE-bench (73.8%).
High-volume chat	Grok 4.6	Lower output list price ($6/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	Claude Sonnet 5	Lower TTFT (175 ms).
Long-document RAG	Claude Sonnet 5	Larger window (1M).
Screenshots / vision	Grok 4.6	Both accept images. Defaulting to the higher-Elo side (Grok 4.6).

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Claude Sonnet 5 or Grok 4.6?

Grok 4.6 has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,592). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.

Which is better at coding, Claude Sonnet 5 or Grok 4.6?

Claude Sonnet 5 leads SWE-bench at 73.8% vs 69.1%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.

Which is cheaper to run in production?

Grok 4.6 output tokens are $6/1M versus $10/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.

Which is faster, Claude Sonnet 5 or Grok 4.6?

Claude Sonnet 5 has the lower time-to-first-token (175 ms vs 195 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.

Which has the larger context window?

Claude Sonnet 5 accepts 1M tokens versus 500k.

Can I self-host either model?

Neither model is marked open-weights here. You are comparing hosted APIs.

Are these scores from CompareLLM’s own evals?

No. V1 aggregates public leaderboards (and optional first-party latency pings). Each cell names its source and date. Read /methodology.

What does preference Elo mean on this page?

Preference Elo is a crowd vote from LMArena / Arena. People see two hidden answers and pick the one they like more. The model that wins more often gets a higher Elo. That means people preferred it — not that it passed a school test. It is not SWE-bench, not accuracy, and not a number we invent. Claude Sonnet 5 and Grok 4.6 Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

Swap or Add Any Model to this Matchup

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Intelligence & Reasoning

Speed & Latency

Pricing & Capacity

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

Grok 4.6

Claude Sonnet 5

Grok 4.6

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Key Selection Recommendations

Recommended Workload Routing

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

Grok vs ChatGPT: price and Elo, not a personality contest

Grok 4.6 (Aug 12): post-training refresh, same $2/$6 list

Sonnet vs Opus in 2026: same family, different invoice

Claude Sonnet 5 at $2/$10: the 2026 Anthropic workhorse

Cast Your Matchup Vote

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CompareLLM Matrix

Claude Sonnet 5

Grok 4.6

Frequently Asked Questions

Related news

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

Swap or Add Any Model to this Matchup

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Intelligence & Reasoning

Speed & Latency

Pricing & Capacity

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

Grok 4.6

Claude Sonnet 5

Grok 4.6

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Key Selection Recommendations

Recommended Workload Routing

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

Grok vs ChatGPT: price and Elo, not a personality contest

Grok 4.6 (Aug 12): post-training refresh, same $2/$6 list

Sonnet vs Opus in 2026: same family, different invoice

Claude Sonnet 5 at $2/$10: the 2026 Anthropic workhorse

Cast Your Matchup Vote

Community Discussions (0)

Share card

CompareLLM Matrix

Claude Sonnet 5

Grok 4.6

Frequently Asked Questions

Related news

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons