Compare/GPT-5.4 (low) vs Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)

GPT-5.4 (low)vsClaude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)

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

OpenAI

GPT-5.4 (low)

Input
$2.5/M
Output
$15/M
Speed
59 tok/s
TTFT
1.59s
Anthropic

Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)

Input
$3/M
Output
$15/M
Speed
68 tok/s
TTFT
55.54s

Winner by Category

Cheaper
GPT-5.4 (low)
Faster (tok/s)
Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)
Lower Latency
GPT-5.4 (low)
Benchmarks (2-5)
Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)

Pricing Comparison

MetricGPT-5.4 (low)Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)
Input ($/M tokens)$2.5$3
Output ($/M tokens)$15$15
Cost for 1M input + 100K output tokens:
GPT-5.4 (low)$4.00
Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)$4.50

Speed Comparison

Output Speed (tokens/s) — higher is better
GPT-5.4 (low)
59 tok/s
Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)
68 tok/s
Time to First Token (seconds) — lower is better
GPT-5.4 (low)
1.59s
Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)
55.54s

Benchmark Comparison

Data from Artificial Analysis API — 12 benchmarks

Intelligence Index
47.951.7
Coding Index
45.650.9
Math Index
GPQA Diamond
87.1%87.5%
MMLU-Pro
LiveCodeBench
AIME 2025
MATH-500
Humanity's Last Exam
28.9%30.0%
SciCode
50.3%46.8%
IFBench
65.9%56.6%
TerminalBench
43.2%53.0%
GPT-5.4 (low)2 wins
5 winsClaude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is cheaper, GPT-5.4 (low) or Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)?

GPT-5.4 (low) is cheaper overall. Its blended price (3:1 input/output ratio) is $5.63/M tokens vs $6.00/M for Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort).

Which model performs better on benchmarks?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) wins 5 out of 12 benchmarks compared to 2 for GPT-5.4 (low). See the detailed benchmark chart above for per-category results.

Which is faster for real-time applications?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) generates tokens faster at 68 tok/s vs 59 tok/s. GPT-5.4 (low) also has lower time-to-first-token (1.59s vs 55.54s).

When should I use GPT-5.4 (low) vs Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)?

Choose based on your priorities: GPT-5.4 (low) for lower cost, Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) for stronger benchmark performance, and Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) for faster generation. For latency-sensitive apps, check the TTFT comparison above.