Comparison
Claude Sonnet 5 vs Grok 4.6
How Claude Sonnet 5 and Grok 4.6 compare on the numbers that decide the call - and how to switch between them without touching your code.
| Spec | Claude Sonnet 5 | Grok 4.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1Mlower is cheaper | $2 | $2 |
| Output price / 1Mlower is cheaper | $10 | $6 |
| Context windowbigger fits more | 1M | 500K |
| Typical speedfaster median | 980ms | 4.3s |
| Quality score | 93/100 | 96/100 |
| Provider | Anthropic | xAI |
Which should you pick?
- Claude Sonnet 5 takes a larger context window (1M tokens).
- Claude Sonnet 5 is usually the faster to answer.
- Grok 4.6 scores higher on the composite quality benchmark.
You do not have to choose permanently. Name one as your first choice and let Final Router fall back to the other when a provider fails - the request still gets answered, and the log shows which model replied.
Common questions
- Is Claude Sonnet 5 or Grok 4.6 cheaper?
- Their input token prices are the same ($2 per 1M). Compare output: $10 vs $6.
- Can I switch between Claude Sonnet 5 and Grok 4.6 without changing my code?
- Yes. Both are called through the same OpenAI-compatible endpoint - change only the model id ("anthropic/claude-sonnet-5" or "xai/grok-4.6"), or let a routing policy fall back from one to the other automatically.