Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Grok Code Fast 1

Benchmarks, API pricing and specs, head to head. Data updated 2026-06-10.

Claude Sonnet 4.5

Anthropic · Sep 2025

65.5

The model that made 30-hour autonomous coding sessions real — 77.2% SWE-bench Verified and a 1M-token context beta at $3/$15.

Grok Code Fast 1

xAI · Aug 2025

A speed-first coding model built for agentic IDE loops, popular as a cheap fast tier in Cursor and similar tools.

The verdict

Claude Sonnet 4.5 wins 1 of the 1 benchmarks these models share, against 0 for Grok Code Fast 1. On price the gap is dramatic: Grok Code Fast 1 works out roughly 11x cheaper per blended million tokens. Grok Code Fast 1 also takes 256K of context versus 200K for Claude Sonnet 4.5.

Benchmark head-to-head 10

SWE-bench Verified
77.2%70.8%
Claude Sonnet 4.5Grok Code Fast 1

Specs & pricing

Claude Sonnet 4.5Grok Code Fast 1
modhub Index65.5
Input price / 1M$3$0.2
Output price / 1M$15$1.5
Context window200K256K
Max output64K
Open weightsnono
Reasoning modelyesyes
Multimodal inputtext, imagetext
Knowledge cutoffJan 2025Aug 2025
ReleasedSep 2025Aug 2025
Example monthly cost*$52.50$4.25

* 10M input + 1.5M output tokens per month at list prices, no caching. Green = better value on that row.

Frequently asked questions

Which is better, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Grok Code Fast 1?
Claude Sonnet 4.5 wins 1 of the 1 benchmarks these models share, against 0 for Grok Code Fast 1. On price the gap is dramatic: Grok Code Fast 1 works out roughly 11x cheaper per blended million tokens. Grok Code Fast 1 also takes 256K of context versus 200K for Claude Sonnet 4.5.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Grok Code Fast 1?
Claude Sonnet 4.5 costs $3/$15 per million input/output tokens, while Grok Code Fast 1 costs $0.2/$1.5. For a typical workload of 10M input and 1.5M output tokens per month, that's $52.50 versus $4.25.
Which model is better for coding, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Grok Code Fast 1?
On SWE-bench Verified — the standard agentic-coding benchmark — Claude Sonnet 4.5 scores 77.2% versus 70.8% for Grok Code Fast 1, making Claude Sonnet 4.5 the stronger pick for coding agents.

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