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Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-5.4 Mini

Anthropic against OpenAI, compared on context, price, and verified benchmark results.

Catalog record checked September 3, 2026Individual provider fields may changeEvidence confidence: High — see receipts below

Anthropic

Claude Sonnet 5

Balanced

vs

OpenAI

GPT-5.4 Mini

Balanced

AI model capability comparison
SpecificationClaude Sonnet 5GPT-5.4 Mini
ProviderAnthropicOpenAI
TierBalancedBalanced
Context windowWinner: 1M400K
Max output128K128K
Input / 1M tokens$2Winner: $0.75
Output / 1M tokens$10Winner: $4.50
WeightsClosedClosed
ParametersNot disclosedUnverifiedNot disclosedUnverified
Reasoning levelsadaptivenone, low, medium, high
Modalitiestext, imagetext, image
API model idclaude-sonnet-5gpt-5.4-mini
ReleasedJune 30, 2026March 17, 2026
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (2026-08-14)55Not verifiedUnverified
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index [high] (2026-08-14)Not verifiedUnverified46
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (2026-06-30)80.4Not verifiedUnverified
Humanity's Last Exam (2026-06-30)57.4Not verifiedUnverified
SWE-bench Verified (2026-09-01)79.6Not verifiedUnverified
LiveBench (2026-09-05)76Not verifiedUnverified

Prices are USD per million tokens at standard rates, excluding batch and caching discounts. Bold indicates the better figure where one is objectively better. Values we could not confirm from the provider are shown as “Not verified” rather than estimated.

Benchmark receipts

  • 2026-09-05: LiveBench official leaderboard (benchmark-owned), xhigh effortContamination-resistant general capability across reasoning, coding, math, data analysis, and language, with monthly question refreshes. Comparability: comparable with caveat — Rolling question set: observations months apart measure different question mixes. Record the measurement date and compare within ~1 month windows.
  • 2026-09-01: vals.ai SWE-bench Verified leaderboard (independent, mini-swe-agent bash-only); not published by Anthropic; a 72.7 CosmicJS claim is unverifiedReal GitHub issue resolution: does the model's patch pass the hidden tests. Comparability: comparable with caveat — Post-audit vendor claims and pre-audit scores sit on different task trust levels; scaffolding (agent harness, compute budget) also dominates results. Never aggregate across scaffolds.
  • 2026-08-14: Artificial AnalysisComposite index blending reasoning, knowledge, and coding evals into one 0–100 score. Comparability: directly comparable — AA occasionally rebaselines the index scale between snapshots — a score captured on one date is only comparable to same-snapshot scores (check measuredAt).
  • 2026-06-30: Anthropic announcement (vendor, with tools)Frontier-knowledge ceiling: extremely hard multi-domain questions written to be near-impossible without deep expertise. Comparability: comparable with caveat — Subset/tool configurations (text-only vs with-tools) differ between vendors and materially change scores; must match configuration to compare.
  • 2026-06-30: Anthropic announcement table (vendor, default effort; via Vellum transcription)Agentic terminal work: multi-step tasks executed in a sandboxed shell environment. Comparability: comparable with caveat — Scores across Terminal-Bench major versions (v1 vs v2) are NOT comparable; harness configuration (container, time limits) also shifts results.

Pricing tiers: Claude Sonnet 5: Standard $2/$10 per MTok; cache reads 10% of base input. Knowledge cutoff Jan 2026. · GPT-5.4 Mini: Standard $0.75/$4.50 per MTok; cached input $0.075/MTok; batch $0.375/$2.25.

BalancedRecord checked September 3, 2026

Claude Sonnet 5

Claude Sonnet 5 is Anthropic's best speed/intelligence balance for high-volume agentic work at $2/$10.

Best for

  • Everyday generation
  • High-volume agents
  • Cost-sensitive work

Watch out

A step below Opus 5 on the hardest tasks; pick Opus when quality is paramount.

BalancedRecord checked September 3, 2026

GPT-5.4 Mini

GPT-5.4 Mini is OpenAI's efficient mid-tier for high-volume, well-scoped tasks at $0.75/$4.50.

Best for

  • High-volume calls
  • Mixed workloads
  • Cost-sensitive production

Watch out

400K context (vs 1.05M on GPT-5.4/5.5/5.6); verify long-context needs.

When the cheaper one wins

GPT-5.4 Mini is cheaper on output at $4.50 per million tokens against $10 for Claude Sonnet 5 — about 2.2×. Use the cheaper tier for classification, extraction, summarisation, and any task where the expensive model’s extra score does not change the accepted output. The expensive one only pays if your hardest task actually fails on the cheap tier. These are standard-tier API rates, excluding batch and cache discounts.

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Evidence confidence: High

How strong and complete the evidence behind this comparison is — not a prediction of which model is better.

  • Pricing verified on both sides — Input and output rates are verified for both models.
  • 4/5 core specs verified on both sides — Not published for at least one side: parameter count.
  • 1 shared named benchmark with differing scores — Measured on: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index.
  • Verified within the last 90 days — Newest catalog check was 8 days ago.
  • Both models carry source citations — Each side has at least two catalog sources on record.

Source receipts

Each catalog figure was checked against the provider or an independent second source on the date shown.

Related comparisons

Diving deeper on one model? Claude Sonnet 5 · GPT-5.4 Mini

Common questions

Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-5.4 Mini

Answered from the verified figures on this page rather than general guidance.

Is Claude Sonnet 5 or GPT-5.4 Mini cheaper for input?

GPT-5.4 Mini is cheaper at $0.75 per million input tokens, against $2 for Claude Sonnet 5 — roughly 2.7× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; Claude Sonnet 5 has tiered pricing: Standard $2/$10 per MTok; cache reads 10% of base input. Knowledge cutoff Jan 2026. GPT-5.4 Mini has tiered pricing: Standard $0.75/$4.50 per MTok; cached input $0.075/MTok; batch $0.375/$2.25.

Is Claude Sonnet 5 or GPT-5.4 Mini cheaper for output?

GPT-5.4 Mini is cheaper at $4.50 per million output tokens, against $10 for Claude Sonnet 5 — roughly 2.2× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; Claude Sonnet 5 has tiered pricing: Standard $2/$10 per MTok; cache reads 10% of base input. Knowledge cutoff Jan 2026. GPT-5.4 Mini has tiered pricing: Standard $0.75/$4.50 per MTok; cached input $0.075/MTok; batch $0.375/$2.25.

Which has the larger context window, Claude Sonnet 5 or GPT-5.4 Mini?

Claude Sonnet 5 accepts 1M tokens against 400K for GPT-5.4 Mini. This only matters if you routinely send very long documents or large codebases.

Do Claude Sonnet 5 and GPT-5.4 Mini support the same reasoning levels?

Claude Sonnet 5 exposes adaptive, while GPT-5.4 Mini exposes none, low, medium, high.

Should I use Claude Sonnet 5 or GPT-5.4 Mini?

Both sit in the balanced tier, so the choice usually comes down to price and context rather than capability. Claude Sonnet 5 suits everyday generation; GPT-5.4 Mini suits high-volume calls.

Next step

Choosing between them

The verified figures that separate this pair, computed from the catalog rather than restated boilerplate.

  • Input price: GPT-5.4 Mini costs $0.75 per 1M tokens versus $2 for Claude Sonnet 5 — a 2.7x difference at the headline tier.
  • Context: Claude Sonnet 5 takes 1M against 400K for GPT-5.4 Mini — only decisive if your prompts approach the smaller window.
  • Measured capability: Claude Sonnet 5 leads Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index 55 to 46 (measured 2026-08-14).
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