High-volume, cost-sensitive work
Choose Claude Sonnet 4.6
Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs 25% less on a typical mix of three input tokens for every output token ($6.00 against $8.00 per million tokens).
Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs GPT-5.6 Sol: price, context and capabilities
Choose Claude Sonnet 4.6 for high-volume, cost-sensitive work, writing and code generation and reused prompts and documents (RAG, agents). Choose GPT-5.6 Sol for agentic coding, tool use and support agents, reasoning over long documents and the latest release.
In short
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 is 25% cheaper than GPT-5.6 Sol at the headline price ($6.00 / 1M tokens vs $8.00 / 1M tokens).
- GPT-5.6 Sol reads more per request: 1.05M tokens against 1M.
- GPT-5.6 Sol is the newer model (Jul 9, 2026, against February 2026).
Which should you choose?
Each answer below comes straight from the published prices, specifications and independent benchmark results.
Writing and code generation
Choose Claude Sonnet 4.6
Claude Sonnet 4.6 charges $15.00 per million output tokens, against $20.00 for GPT-5.6 Sol. Output dominates the bill when answers are long.
Reused prompts and documents (RAG, agents)
Choose Claude Sonnet 4.6
Claude Sonnet 4.6 charges $0.30 per million cached input tokens, against $0.40 for GPT-5.6 Sol.
Agentic coding
Choose GPT-5.6 Sol
GPT-5.6 Sol scores 65.9% on Terminal-Bench Hard, against 46.2% for Claude Sonnet 4.6.
Tool use and support agents
Choose GPT-5.6 Sol
GPT-5.6 Sol scores 85.1% on τ²-Bench (agentic tool use), against 79.5% for Claude Sonnet 4.6.
Reasoning over long documents
Choose GPT-5.6 Sol
GPT-5.6 Sol scores 84% on Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR), against 68.3% for Claude Sonnet 4.6.
Latest release
Choose GPT-5.6 Sol
GPT-5.6 Sol is the newer release (Jul 9, 2026, against February 2026 for Claude Sonnet 4.6).
Monthly cost at three volumes
| Volume | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | GPT-5.6 Sol | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prototype: 1M input, 250K output tokens | $6.75 | $9.00 | Claude Sonnet 4.6, $2.25 less |
| Production: 20M input, 5M output tokens | $135.00 | $180.00 | Claude Sonnet 4.6, $45.00 less |
| Scale: 500M input, 100M output tokens | $3,000 | $4,000 | Claude Sonnet 4.6, $1,000 less |
Standard rates, without caching or batch discounts. Volumes are per month.
Specifications side by side
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 | GPT-5.6 Sol | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | OpenAI |
| Category | Language models | Language models |
| Status | Legacy | Generally available |
| Headline price | $6.00 / 1M tokens | $8.00 / 1M tokens |
| Input | $3.00 / 1M tokens | $4.00 / 1M tokens |
| Output | $15.00 / 1M tokens | $20.00 / 1M tokens |
| Cached input | $0.30 / 1M tokens | $0.40 / 1M tokens |
| Context window | 1M | 1.05M |
| Max output | No data | 128k |
| Released | February 2026 | Jul 9, 2026 |
| Knowledge cutoff | No data | February 2026 |
| Licence | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Capabilities | Vision, Reasoning, Tool calling, Structured output, Prompt caching, Batch API | Vision, Reasoning, Tool calling, Structured output, Prompt caching, Batch API |
| API model id | claude-sonnet-4-6 | gpt-5.6-sol |
Benchmarks side by side
Leader in bold.
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench Hard | 46.2% | 65.9% |
| GPQA Diamond | 79.9% | 94.1% |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 13.3% | 49.5% |
| IFBench (instruction following) | 41.2% | 72.7% |
| τ²-Bench (agentic tool use) | 79.5% | 85.1% |
| MMMU-Pro (visual reasoning) | 70.6% | 83.4% |
| Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 68.3% | 84% |
| Intelligence Index | No data | 47 |
| SciCode | No data | 57.1% |
Independent evaluations by Artificial Analysis, run the same way for every model, at the reasoning setting shown. Percentages unless marked as an index.
Frequently asked questions
Should I choose Claude Sonnet 4.6 or GPT-5.6 Sol?
Choose Claude Sonnet 4.6 for high-volume, cost-sensitive work, writing and code generation and reused prompts and documents (RAG, agents). Choose GPT-5.6 Sol for agentic coding, tool use and support agents, reasoning over long documents and the latest release.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or GPT-5.6 Sol?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 is 25% cheaper than GPT-5.6 Sol at the headline price ($6.00 / 1M tokens vs $8.00 / 1M tokens).
Which has the larger context window, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or GPT-5.6 Sol?
GPT-5.6 Sol reads more per request: 1.05M tokens against 1M.
What is the difference between Claude Sonnet 4.6 and GPT-5.6 Sol?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 is made by Anthropic and GPT-5.6 Sol by OpenAI. Claude Sonnet 4.6 is 25% cheaper than GPT-5.6 Sol at the headline price ($6.00 / 1M tokens vs $8.00 / 1M tokens). GPT-5.6 Sol reads more per request: 1.05M tokens against 1M. GPT-5.6 Sol is the newer model (Jul 9, 2026, against February 2026).
Which is better for coding, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or GPT-5.6 Sol?
GPT-5.6 Sol scores 65.9% on Terminal-Bench Hard, against 46.2% for Claude Sonnet 4.6.
How much do Claude Sonnet 4.6 and GPT-5.6 Sol cost per month?
At 20 million input and 5 million output tokens a month, Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs $135.00 and GPT-5.6 Sol costs $180.00, at standard rates.
Which is newer, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or GPT-5.6 Sol?
GPT-5.6 Sol was released on Jul 9, 2026 and Claude Sonnet 4.6 on February 2026.