Claude Sonnet 5 vs Grok 4.5
Side-by-side API pricing and Artificial Analysis performance for Claude Sonnet 5 (Anthropic) and Grok 4.5 (xAI). Green cells mark the better value in each row.
Prices updated Jul 22, 2026, 1:44 AM UTC · refreshed hourly
| Claude Sonnet 5 Anthropic | Grok 4.5 xAI | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| Input $/1M | $2.00 | $2.00 |
| Output $/1M | $10.00 | $6.00 |
| Blended $/1M (3:1) | $4.00 | $3.00 |
| RAG example (30K in / 2K out) | $0.08 | $0.072 |
| Quality & speed | ||
| Intelligence Index | 53.4 | 53.8 |
| Coding Index | 71.5 | 72.4 |
| Agentic Index | 46.7 | 45.7 |
| Output speed (tok/s) | 88 | 74 |
| Time to first token | 93.55s | 9.69s |
| Specs | ||
| Context window | 1M | 500K |
| Input modalities | text, image, file | text, image, file |
FAQ
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5 or Grok 4.5?
Grok 4.5 has the lower blended API price at $3.00 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), Grok 4.5 costs about $0.072 per request versus $0.08. Also compare context windows: Claude Sonnet 5 offers 1M and Grok 4.5 offers 500K.
Which scores higher on Artificial Analysis benchmarks?
Grok 4.5 leads on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (53.8 vs 53.4). Check coding and agentic indices on this page for workload-specific tradeoffs.