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Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Gemini 3 Flash
A detailed comparison of Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Anthropic) and Gemini 3 Flash (Google) across pricing, performance, and features.
Pricing Comparison
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemini 3 Flash | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input / 1M tokens | $3.00 | $0.50 | -83% |
| Output / 1M tokens | $15.00 | $3.00 | -80% |
| Context window | 200K | 1M | — |
| Max output | 16K | 65.536K | — |
Benchmark Comparison
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemini 3 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 86% | 78% |
| HumanEval | 94% | 90% |
| GPQA | 70% | — |
Capabilities
| Capability | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemini 3 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| code | ✓ | ✓ |
| reasoning | ✓ | ✓ |
| text | ✓ | ✓ |
| tool-use | ✓ | ✓ |
| vision | ✓ | ✓ |
Claude Sonnet 4.6 Strengths
- ✓Opus 4.5 quality at 1/5th the cost
- ✓Best value for production workloads
- ✓1M context in beta
Claude Sonnet 4.6 Weaknesses
- ✗Long context pricing doubles above 200K
- ✗Slightly below Opus 4.6 on hardest tasks
Gemini 3 Flash Strengths
- ✓1M context at budget pricing
- ✓Very fast
- ✓Free tier available via Google AI Studio
Gemini 3 Flash Weaknesses
- ✗Less capable than Pro on complex reasoning
- ✗Audio input priced separately ($1/1M)
Quick Verdict
Best value: Gemini 3 Flash is the more affordable option at $0.5/$3 per 1M tokens.
Higher benchmarks: Gemini 3 Flash scores higher on average across available benchmarks (84.0% avg).
Larger context: Gemini 3 Flash supports 1M tokens.
Choose Gemini 3 Flash if cost matters most. Choose Claude Sonnet 4.6 if you need the best possible quality for complex tasks.