AI Models · Paid vs Paid

Claude Sonnet 4.6 Paid vs Gemini 3.5 Flash Paid

Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Gemini 3.5 Flash compared — price per token, context window, multimodality, openness and which to choose. Full 2026 breakdown.

Claude Sonnet 4.6 — full profile ›  ·  Gemini 3.5 Flash — full profile ›

Prices & specs refreshed from live data · OpenSourceAI.tech

Open-model prices = cheapest provider via OpenRouter; official maker rates may be higher.

Choose Gemini 3.5 Flash for the lower output price ($9/M vs $15/M). It also gives you the larger 1M context window.

Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Gemini 3.5 Flash specs

SpecClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3.5 Flash
MakerAnthropicGoogle
TypeProprietaryProprietary
Context window1M tokens1M tokens
Input price$3/M$1.5/M
Output price$15/M$9/M
Vision / multimodalYesYes
Tool / function callingYesYes
Self-hostableNo (API only)No (API only)
LicenseProprietaryProprietary

Feature comparison

CapabilityClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3.5 Flash
Open weights (downloadable)✗✗
Self-hostable✗✗
Runs fully offline✗✗
Vision / multimodal✓✓
Tool / function calling✓✓
1M+ context window✓✓

Benchmarks: Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Gemini 3.5 Flash

Independent benchmark scores measured by Artificial Analysis. Higher is better (except latency).

Claude Sonnet 4.6
Gemini 3.5 Flash
Intelligence index
47.2
50.2
Coding index
63
70.1
GPQA
87.5%
92.2%
Humanity's Last Exam
30%
41%
Long Context Reasoning
70.7%
69.3%
SciCode
46.8%
53.1%
IFBench
56.6%
76.3%
τ²-Bench
75.7%
95.3%
τ-Bench Banking
30.5%
25.4%
Terminal-Bench
71.2%
78.7%
Terminal-Bench Hard
53%
40.9%
Speed
69.6 tok/s
293.7 tok/s
Latency
51.32s
12.74s
Intelligence per $
7.9
14.9

Benchmark data by Artificial Analysis.

How Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Gemini 3.5 Flash score

🤝 Neck and neck on these criteria (3.1 vs 3.2 / 5).
CriterionClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3.5 Flash
Cost-efficiency3.03.5
Context window5.05.0
Openness1.51.5
Self-hosting1.01.0
Multimodality5.05.0

Scores come from live data — output price (cost), context length, open vs closed weights (openness & self-hosting) and vision/tool support (multimodality). Raw task quality isn't scored here; it depends on your benchmark — see the verdict.

What each model is

Claude Sonnet 4.6 Paid

Anthropic · Proprietary

Sonnet 4.6 is Anthropic's most capable Sonnet-class model yet, with frontier performance across coding, agents, and professional work. It excels at iterative development, complex codebase navigation, end-to-end project management with...

Gemini 3.5 Flash Paid

Google · Proprietary

Gemini 3.5 Flash is Google's high-efficiency multimodal model, bringing near-Pro level coding and reasoning at Flash-tier cost and speed. It is highly optimized for coding proficiency and parallel agentic execution...

Other models in these families

These variants are tracked but not compared here — one page per family keeps the comparison readable.

Other variants tracked
Claude Sonnet 4.5Claude Sonnet 5
Other variants tracked
Gemini 3 Flash PreviewGemini 2.5 Flash

Frequently asked questions

Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Gemini 3.5 Flash — which is cheaper?

Gemini 3.5 Flash is cheaper on output ($9/M vs $15/M).

Which has the larger context window?

Gemini 3.5 Flash offers the larger context window (1M tokens).

Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Gemini 3.5 Flash — which should I pick in 2026?

Choose Gemini 3.5 Flash for the lower output price ($9/M vs $15/M). It also gives you the larger 1M context window.

People also compare

DeepSeek V4 Flash vs Claude Sonnet 4.6DeepSeek V4 Flash vs Gemini 3.5 FlashGLM 5.2 vs Claude Sonnet 4.6GLM 5.2 vs Gemini 3.5 FlashMiniMax M3 vs Claude Sonnet 4.6MiniMax M3 vs Gemini 3.5 Flash

Explore more open-source AI

Browse the full open-source model leaderboard, thousands of tools and live benchmarks — all in one place.

Open the leaderboard →