Claude Sonnet 5 vs Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image)
Side-by-side API pricing and Artificial Analysis performance for Claude Sonnet 5 (Anthropic) and Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image) (Google). Green cells mark the better value in each row.
Prices updated Jul 22, 2026, 1:35 AM UTC · refreshed hourly
| Claude Sonnet 5 Anthropic | Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image) | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| Input $/1M | $2.00 | $0.50 |
| Output $/1M | $10.00 | $3.00 |
| Blended $/1M (3:1) | $4.00 | $1.13 |
| RAG example (30K in / 2K out) | $0.08 | $0.021 |
| Quality & speed | ||
| Intelligence Index | 53.4 | — |
| Coding Index | 71.5 | — |
| Agentic Index | 46.7 | — |
| Output speed (tok/s) | 88 | — |
| Time to first token | 93.55s | — |
| Specs | ||
| Context window | 1M | 131K |
| Input modalities | text, image, file | image, text |
FAQ
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5 or Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image)?
Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image) has the lower blended API price at $1.13 per 1M tokens (3:1 input:output mix), versus $4.00 for the other model. Prices are live from OpenRouter and refresh about hourly.
Which is better for RAG workloads?
For a typical RAG request (30K input / 2K output tokens), Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image) costs about $0.021 per request versus $0.08. Also compare context windows: Claude Sonnet 5 offers 1M and Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image) offers 131K.
Which scores higher on Artificial Analysis benchmarks?
Claude Sonnet 5 leads on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (53.4 vs —). Check coding and agentic indices on this page for workload-specific tradeoffs.