Side-by-side comparison of pricing, 12 benchmarks, and generation speed.
| Metric | GPT-4o (May '24) | Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Non-reasoning, High Effort) |
|---|---|---|
| Input ($/M tokens) | $5 | $3 |
| Output ($/M tokens) | $15 | $15 |
Verdict. GPT-4o (May '24) and Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Non-reasoning, High Effort) split the benchmark comparison evenly at 1–1. The tiebreaker here is price, speed, and what you actually run them on.
Pricing. Both models sit in the premium bracket for output-token pricing. At 1.0× the per-million-token cost, Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Non-reasoning, High Effort) is meaningfully cheaper if your traffic is output-heavy (long completions, document generation, agent loops). Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Non-reasoning, High Effort) makes more sense when output volume is low and absolute reasoning quality justifies the premium.
Strengths. GPT-4o (May '24) is strongest on Coding Index (24.2), Intelligence Index (8.4). Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Non-reasoning, High Effort) leads on Intelligence Index (36.8).
Speed. On throughput, GPT-4o (May '24) generates tokens at 91 tok/s versus 43 tok/s — about 53% faster. On time-to-first-token, GPT-4o (May '24) responds in 1240ms vs 1360ms, which matters most for chat-style UIs.
Provider. OpenAI and Anthropic sell to overlapping but distinct developer audiences: OpenAI tends to ship frontier reasoning models with premium positioning, while Anthropic often prices more aggressively. Your existing vendor relationships, billing, and SLA preferences may matter as much as the raw numbers above.
Workload cost. Workload scenarios (per million requests at 30M input + 15M output tokens): GPT-4o (May '24) costs $375.00 ($4500/year); Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Non-reasoning, High Effort) costs $315.00 ($3780/year). At a smaller 5M-input/2M-output scale (single-developer tool or prototype): GPT-4o (May '24) ≈ $55.00/run, Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Non-reasoning, High Effort) ≈ $45.00/run. At agent/realtime scale (200M input / 100M output per million requests): GPT-4o (May '24) ≈ $2500/run, Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Non-reasoning, High Effort) ≈ $2100/run. Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Non-reasoning, High Effort) becomes more attractive at higher volume — the absolute per-token pricing difference compounds when you ship at scale.
Recommendation. Both models have legitimate use cases — the right answer depends on whether you are optimizing for benchmark ceiling, latency, or unit cost. Start with the cheaper / faster model, evaluate against your specific task, and only switch if the upgrade shows a meaningful lift.
Head-to-head deltas
Data from Artificial Analysis API — 12 benchmarks
Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Non-reasoning, High Effort) is cheaper overall. Its blended price (3:1 input/output ratio) is $6.00/M tokens vs $7.50/M for GPT-4o (May '24).
It's a tie — both models win 1 benchmarks each across 12 evaluated categories. See the detailed benchmark chart above for per-category results.
GPT-4o (May '24) generates tokens faster at 91 tok/s vs 43 tok/s. GPT-4o (May '24) also has lower time-to-first-token (1.24s vs 1.36s).
Choose based on your priorities: Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Non-reasoning, High Effort) for lower cost, both perform similarly on benchmarks, and GPT-4o (May '24) for faster generation. For latency-sensitive apps, check the TTFT comparison above.