AI Models · Paid vs Paid

Claude Sonnet 5 Paid vs AMNova Lite 1.0 Paid

Claude Sonnet 5 vs Nova Lite 1.0 compared — price per token, context window, multimodality, openness and which to choose. Full 2026 breakdown.

Prices & specs refreshed from live data · olud.ai

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

Claude Sonnet 5PaidAnthropic
$2 /M input
$10 /M outputManaged API (no infra to run)
TypeProprietary
Context window1M tokens
MultimodalYes
Self-hostNo
AMNova Lite 1.0PaidAmazon
$0.06 /M input
$0.24 /M outputManaged API (no infra to run)
TypeProprietary
Context window300K tokens
MultimodalYes
Self-hostNo
Choose Nova Lite 1.0 for the lower output price ($0.24/M vs $10/M). Choose Claude Sonnet 5 if you need the larger 1M context window.

Claude Sonnet 5 vs Nova Lite 1.0 specs

SpecClaude Sonnet 5Nova Lite 1.0Winner
MakerAnthropicAmazon
TypeProprietaryProprietary
Context window1M tokens300K tokensClaude Sonnet 5
Input price$2/M$0.06/MAMNova Lite 1.0
Output price$10/M$0.24/MAMNova Lite 1.0
Vision / multimodalYesYes= Tie
Tool / function callingYesYes= Tie
Self-hostableNo (API only)No (API only)
LicenseProprietaryProprietary

Price gap & when to choose each

42×cheaper per output token

Nova Lite 1.0 is ~42× cheaper than Claude Sonnet 5 on output tokens ($0.24 vs $10 per M tokens).

Choose Claude Sonnet 5 if…
  • You want frontier performance through a managed API
  • You need the longer 1M context window
  • You value reliability & ecosystem
  • You don't want to manage infrastructure
AMChoose Nova Lite 1.0 if…
  • You want frontier performance through a managed API
  • You want the lower output price
  • You value reliability & ecosystem
  • You don't want to manage infrastructure

Feature comparison

CapabilityClaude Sonnet 5Nova Lite 1.0
Open weights (downloadable)
Self-hostable
Runs fully offline
Vision / multimodal
Tool / function calling
1M+ context window

Benchmarks: Claude Sonnet 5 vs Nova Lite 1.0

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

Claude Sonnet 5
Nova Lite 1.0
Intelligence index
38.4
Coding index
71.5
GPQA
91.1%
Humanity's Last Exam
41.3%
Long Context Reasoning
82%
SciCode
54.3%
τ-Bench Banking
37.3%
Terminal-Bench
80.5%
Speed
83.2 tok/s
Latency
114.22s
Intelligence per $
9.6

Benchmark data by Artificial Analysis.

How Claude Sonnet 5 and Nova Lite 1.0 score

🤝 Neck and neck on these criteria (3.2 vs 3.3 / 5).
CriterionClaude Sonnet 5Nova Lite 1.0
Cost-efficiency3.55.0
Context window5.04.0
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 5 Paid

Anthropic · Proprietary

Sonnet 5 is Anthropic's most capable Sonnet-class model, with frontier performance across coding, agents, and professional work. It supports adaptive thinking with selectable reasoning effort levels (low, medium, high, max,...

Nova Lite 1.0 Paid

Amazon · Proprietary

Amazon Nova Lite 1.0 is a very low-cost multimodal model from Amazon that focused on fast processing of image, video, and text inputs to generate text output. Amazon Nova Lite...

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 5 (batch)Claude Sonnet 4.6Claude Sonnet 4.6 (batch)Claude Sonnet 4.5Claude Sonnet 4.5 (batch)Claude Sonnet 4

Frequently asked questions

Claude Sonnet 5 vs Nova Lite 1.0 — which is cheaper?

Nova Lite 1.0 is cheaper on output ($0.24/M vs $10/M).

Which has the larger context window?

Claude Sonnet 5 offers the larger context window (1M tokens).

Claude Sonnet 5 vs Nova Lite 1.0 — which should I pick in 2026?

Choose Nova Lite 1.0 for the lower output price ($0.24/M vs $10/M). Choose Claude Sonnet 5 if you need the larger 1M context window.

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