Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs DeepSeek V3.2
Benchmarks, API pricing and specs, head to head. Data updated 2026-06-10.
Anthropic · Apr 2026
Anthropic's mid-tier workhorse: near-Opus capability at $3/$15, and the leader on the Finance Agent benchmark.
DeepSeek · Sep 2025
The sparse-attention release that halved DeepSeek's already-lowest-in-class prices while keeping GPT-class quality.
The verdict
Claude Sonnet 4.6 wins 1 of the 1 benchmarks these models share, against 0 for DeepSeek V3.2. On price the gap is dramatic: DeepSeek V3.2 works out roughly 19x cheaper per blended million tokens. Claude Sonnet 4.6 also takes 1M of context versus 128K for DeepSeek V3.2. And DeepSeek V3.2 is open-weights (MIT), so it can be self-hosted — a structural advantage if data control or vendor independence matters.
Benchmark head-to-head 1–0
Specs & pricing
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 | DeepSeek V3.2 | |
|---|---|---|
| modhub Index | — | 68.4 |
| Input price / 1M | $3 | $0.28 |
| Output price / 1M | $15 | $0.42 |
| Context window | 1M | 128K |
| Max output | 64K | 64K |
| Open weights | no | yes (MIT) |
| Reasoning model | yes | yes |
| Multimodal input | text, image | text |
| Knowledge cutoff | Jan 2026 | Jul 2025 |
| Released | Apr 2026 | Sep 2025 |
| Example monthly cost* | $52.50 | $3.43 |
* 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 4.6 or DeepSeek V3.2?
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 wins 1 of the 1 benchmarks these models share, against 0 for DeepSeek V3.2. On price the gap is dramatic: DeepSeek V3.2 works out roughly 19x cheaper per blended million tokens. Claude Sonnet 4.6 also takes 1M of context versus 128K for DeepSeek V3.2. And DeepSeek V3.2 is open-weights (MIT), so it can be self-hosted — a structural advantage if data control or vendor independence matters.
- Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or DeepSeek V3.2?
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs $3/$15 per million input/output tokens, while DeepSeek V3.2 costs $0.28/$0.42. For a typical workload of 10M input and 1.5M output tokens per month, that's $52.50 versus $3.43.
- Which model is better for coding, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or DeepSeek V3.2?
- On SWE-bench Verified — the standard agentic-coding benchmark — Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores ~79.6% versus 67.8% for DeepSeek V3.2, making Claude Sonnet 4.6 the stronger pick for coding agents.