Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-5.6 Sol
Claude Sonnet 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol are both current production-tier models. Claude Sonnet 5 is meaningfully cheaper at $3 / $15 per 1M. GPT-5.6 Sol leads on general knowledge, multilingual, vision.
Specs side by side
| Metric | Anthropic Claude Sonnet 5 | OpenAI GPT-5.6 Sol |
|---|---|---|
| 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 5 if…
- Cost is a priority ($3 / $15 per 1M vs $5 / $30 per 1M)
Choose GPT-5.6 Sol if…
- You need realtime speech-to-speech
- General knowledge is central to your workload
- Multilingual is central to your workload
Benchmark delta
Claude Sonnet 5 leads on
Claude Sonnet 5 has no meaningful benchmark lead in this pair.
GPT-5.6 Sol leads on
- General knowledge
- Multilingual
- Vision
FAQ — Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-5.6 Sol
Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-5.6 Sol — which is better?
Claude Sonnet 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol are both current production-tier models. Claude Sonnet 5 is meaningfully cheaper at $3 / $15 per 1M. GPT-5.6 Sol leads on general knowledge, multilingual, vision. The right pick depends on your use case — see "When to choose each" above for a data-driven decision.
How does Claude Sonnet 5 pricing compare to GPT-5.6 Sol?
Claude Sonnet 5 costs $3 / $15 per 1M vs GPT-5.6 Sol at $5 / $30 per 1M. Claude Sonnet 5 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 5 or GPT-5.6 Sol have the bigger context window?
GPT-5.6 Sol has a 1.1M-token context window — 1× the 1M context of Claude Sonnet 5. Enough for entire codebases, books, or multi-document RAG.
Is there a free tier for Claude Sonnet 5 or GPT-5.6 Sol?
Claude Sonnet 5: no — Default model on Claude.ai Free/Pro web chat; API requires paid credits. GPT-5.6 Sol: no — Paid-only — no free API tier; available via ChatGPT Plus/Pro.
Which is better for coding — Claude Sonnet 5 or GPT-5.6 Sol?
GPT-5.6 Sol leads on coding benchmarks (Claude Sonnet 5: 95/100, GPT-5.6 Sol: 96/100). For production coding agents also weigh tool-use performance — Claude Sonnet 5 scores 96, GPT-5.6 Sol scores 95.