Compare/Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) vs Grok 3

Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)vsGrok 3

Side-by-side comparison of pricing, 12 benchmarks, and generation speed.

Anthropic

Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)

Input
$3/M
Output
$15/M
Speed
66 tok/s
TTFT
33.99s
xAI

Grok 3

Input
$3/M
Output
$15/M
Speed
70 tok/s
TTFT
0.33s

Winner by Category

Cheaper
Tie
Faster (tok/s)
Grok 3
Lower Latency
Grok 3
Benchmarks (7-5)
Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)

Pricing Comparison

MetricClaude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)Grok 3
Input ($/M tokens)$3$3
Output ($/M tokens)$15$15
Cost for 1M input + 100K output tokens:
Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)$4.50
Grok 3$4.50

Speed Comparison

Output Speed (tokens/s) — higher is better
Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)
66 tok/s
Grok 3
70 tok/s
Time to First Token (seconds) — lower is better
Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)
33.99s
Grok 3
0.33s

Benchmark Comparison

Data from Artificial Analysis API — 12 benchmarks

Intelligence Index
51.725.2
Coding Index
50.919.8
Math Index
58.0
GPQA Diamond
87.5%69.3%
MMLU-Pro
79.9%
LiveCodeBench
42.5%
AIME 2025
58.0%
MATH-500
87.0%
Humanity's Last Exam
30.0%5.1%
SciCode
46.8%36.8%
IFBench
56.6%46.9%
TerminalBench
53.0%11.4%
Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)7 wins
5 winsGrok 3

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) or Grok 3?

Both models have similar pricing. Check the detailed breakdown above for input vs output token costs.

Which model performs better on benchmarks?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) wins 7 out of 12 benchmarks compared to 5 for Grok 3. See the detailed benchmark chart above for per-category results.

Which is faster for real-time applications?

Grok 3 generates tokens faster at 70 tok/s vs 66 tok/s. However, Grok 3 has lower time-to-first-token (0.33s vs 33.99s).

When should I use Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) vs Grok 3?

Choose based on your priorities: both are similarly priced, Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) for stronger benchmark performance, and Grok 3 for faster generation. For latency-sensitive apps, check the TTFT comparison above.