Claude Sonnet 5 vs Grok 4.3 — Price, Context, and Capability Compared
Claude Sonnet 5 vs Grok 4.3: which should I use?
Claude Sonnet 5 costs 3.8× more per blended million tokens than Grok 4.3. Grok 4.3 has the larger context window (1,000,000 tokens). Default to Grok 4.3 unless you specifically need Claude Sonnet 5's edge.
Spec comparison
| Claude Sonnet 5 | Grok 4.3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Price (input) | $3.00/M | $1.25/M ✓ |
| Price (output) | $15.00/M | $2.50/M ✓ |
| Blended price | $6.00/M | $1.56/M ✓ |
| Context window | 500,000 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens ✓ |
| Max output | 64,000 tokens | 64,000 tokens |
| Modalities | text, vision | text, vision |
| Reasoning mode | Yes | Yes |
| Released | 2026-08 | 2026-06 |
| Speed | Not measured | 98 t/s |
Cost at scale (3:1 blended)
| Tokens / month | Claude Sonnet 5 | Grok 4.3 | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000,000 | $6.00 | $1.56 | $4.44 (3.8×) |
| 10,000,000 | $60.00 | $15.63 | $44.38 (3.8×) |
| 100,000,000 | $600.00 | $156.25 | $443.75 (3.8×) |
Choose Claude Sonnet 5 if…
- ✓Frontier intelligence at Sonnet economics
- ✓Fast interactive coding performance
- ✓Reliable structured output and extended thinking
- ✓Production workloads that need near-Opus quality with better speed and cost.
Choose Grok 4.3 if…
- ✓xAI’s general-purpose flagship
- ✓Extremely fast for its size
- ✓1M-token context
- ✓General-purpose work where speed and a huge context window both matter.
Run this exact matchup right now
Send the same prompt to Claude Sonnet 5 and Grok 4.3 side by side and see the outputs yourself.
Try Claude Sonnet 5 vs Grok 4.3 FreeFAQ
Is Claude Sonnet 5 cheaper than Grok 4.3?
Grok 4.3 is cheaper, at $1.56 per million blended tokens vs $6.00 for Claude Sonnet 5.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Sonnet 5 or Grok 4.3?
Grok 4.3 has the larger context window: 1,000,000 tokens vs 500,000.
Can Claude Sonnet 5 replace Grok 4.3 for coding?
Both are viable for coding. Frontier intelligence at Sonnet economics (Claude Sonnet 5) vs xAI’s general-purpose flagship (Grok 4.3) — pick based on which strength matters more for your workload.
Neither of these? See Claude Sonnet 5 alternatives or Grok 4.3 alternatives.
Related
Pricing verified 2026-05-19. Specs verified 2026-08-08.