Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs GPT-5.5
Claude Sonnet 4.6 and GPT-5.5 are both current production-tier models. Claude Sonnet 4.6 is meaningfully cheaper at $3 / $15 per 1M. Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads on long-context retrieval. GPT-5.5 leads on reasoning, general knowledge, multilingual.
Specs side by side
| Metric | Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.6 | OpenAI GPT-5.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Input price (per 1M) | $3 | $5 |
| Output price (per 1M) | $15 | $30 |
| Context window | 1M tokens | 1.1M tokens |
| Speed tier | balanced | balanced |
| Open weights | No | No |
| EU region | Yes | Yes |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Prompt caching | Yes | Yes |
| Vision input | Yes | Yes |
| Extended thinking | Yes | Yes |
When to choose each
Choose Claude Sonnet 4.6 if…
- Cost is a priority ($3 / $15 per 1M vs $5 / $30 per 1M)
- Long-context retrieval is central to your workload
Choose GPT-5.5 if…
- You need realtime speech-to-speech
- Reasoning is central to your workload
- General knowledge is central to your workload
Benchmark delta
Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads on
- Long-context retrieval
GPT-5.5 leads on
- Reasoning
- General knowledge
- Multilingual
- Vision
FAQ — Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs GPT-5.5
Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs GPT-5.5 — which is better?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 and GPT-5.5 are both current production-tier models. Claude Sonnet 4.6 is meaningfully cheaper at $3 / $15 per 1M. Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads on long-context retrieval. GPT-5.5 leads on reasoning, general knowledge, multilingual. The right pick depends on your use case — see "When to choose each" above for a data-driven decision.
How does Claude Sonnet 4.6 pricing compare to GPT-5.5?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs $3 / $15 per 1M vs GPT-5.5 at $5 / $30 per 1M. Claude Sonnet 4.6 is cheaper on output tokens by roughly 100%. Both support prompt caching, which reduces effective cost by 80-90% on repeat system prompts.
Does Claude Sonnet 4.6 or GPT-5.5 have the bigger context window?
GPT-5.5 has a 1.1M-token context window — 1× the 1M context of Claude Sonnet 4.6. Enough for entire codebases, books, or multi-document RAG.
Is there a free tier for Claude Sonnet 4.6 or GPT-5.5?
Claude Sonnet 4.6: no — Free via Claude.ai web chat; API requires paid credits. GPT-5.5: no — Paid-only — no free API tier; available via ChatGPT Plus/Pro.
Which is better for coding — Claude Sonnet 4.6 or GPT-5.5?
GPT-5.5 leads on coding benchmarks (Claude Sonnet 4.6: 94/100, GPT-5.5: 95/100). For production coding agents also weigh tool-use performance — Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores 96, GPT-5.5 scores 94.