Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs o4-mini
Claude Sonnet 4.6 and o4-mini are both current production-tier models. o4-mini is meaningfully cheaper at $1.1 / $4.4 per 1M. Claude Sonnet 4.6 has a 1M context window — about 5× the 200k of o4-mini. Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads on long-context retrieval, tool use. o4-mini leads on reasoning.
Specs side by side
| Metric | Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.6 | OpenAI o4-mini |
|---|---|---|
| Input price (per 1M) | $3 | $1.1 |
| Output price (per 1M) | $15 | $4.4 |
| Context window | 1M tokens | 200k tokens |
| Speed tier | balanced | slow |
| 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…
- You need 1M context (5× more than o4-mini)
- Long-context retrieval is central to your workload
- Tool use is central to your workload
Choose o4-mini if…
- Cost is a priority ($1.1 / $4.4 per 1M vs $3 / $15 per 1M)
- Reasoning is central to your workload
Benchmark delta
Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads on
- Long-context retrieval
- Tool use
o4-mini leads on
- Reasoning
FAQ — Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs o4-mini
Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs o4-mini — which is better?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 and o4-mini are both current production-tier models. o4-mini is meaningfully cheaper at $1.1 / $4.4 per 1M. Claude Sonnet 4.6 has a 1M context window — about 5× the 200k of o4-mini. Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads on long-context retrieval, tool use. o4-mini leads on reasoning. 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 o4-mini?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs $3 / $15 per 1M vs o4-mini at $1.1 / $4.4 per 1M. o4-mini is cheaper on output tokens by roughly 241%. Both support prompt caching, which reduces effective cost by 80-90% on repeat system prompts.
Does Claude Sonnet 4.6 or o4-mini have the bigger context window?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 has a 1M-token context window — 5× the 200k context of o4-mini. Enough for entire codebases, books, or multi-document RAG.
Is there a free tier for Claude Sonnet 4.6 or o4-mini?
Claude Sonnet 4.6: no — Free via Claude.ai web chat; API requires paid credits. o4-mini: no — Paid-only.
Which is better for coding — Claude Sonnet 4.6 or o4-mini?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads on coding benchmarks (Claude Sonnet 4.6: 94/100, o4-mini: 92/100). For production coding agents also weigh tool-use performance — Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores 96, o4-mini scores 88.