Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Gemini 3.5 Flash
Benchmarks, API pricing and specs, head to head. Data updated 2026-06-10.
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Anthropic · Apr 2026
Anthropic's mid-tier workhorse: near-Opus capability at $3/$15, and the leader on the Finance Agent benchmark.
Gemini 3.5 Flash
Google · May 2026
Google's I/O 2026 headliner: near-Pro intelligence at Flash speed, 78.8% on SWE-bench Verified with full multimodal input.
The verdict
Claude Sonnet 4.6 wins 1 of the 1 benchmarks these models share, against 0 for Gemini 3.5 Flash. Gemini 3.5 Flash is about 1.8x cheaper per blended million tokens (3:1 input:output mix).
Benchmark head-to-head 1–0
Specs & pricing
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemini 3.5 Flash | |
|---|---|---|
| modhub Index | — | — |
| Input price / 1M | $3 | $1.5 |
| Output price / 1M | $15 | $9 |
| Context window | 1M | 1M |
| Max output | 64K | 66K |
| Open weights | no | no |
| Reasoning model | yes | yes |
| Multimodal input | text, image | text, image, audio, video |
| Knowledge cutoff | Jan 2026 | Feb 2026 |
| Released | Apr 2026 | May 2026 |
| Example monthly cost* | $52.50 | $28.50 |
* 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 Gemini 3.5 Flash?
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 wins 1 of the 1 benchmarks these models share, against 0 for Gemini 3.5 Flash. Gemini 3.5 Flash is about 1.8x cheaper per blended million tokens (3:1 input:output mix).
- Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Gemini 3.5 Flash?
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs $3/$15 per million input/output tokens, while Gemini 3.5 Flash costs $1.5/$9. For a typical workload of 10M input and 1.5M output tokens per month, that's $52.50 versus $28.50.
- Which model is better for coding, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Gemini 3.5 Flash?
- On SWE-bench Verified — the standard agentic-coding benchmark — Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores ~79.6% versus 78.8% for Gemini 3.5 Flash, making Claude Sonnet 4.6 the stronger pick for coding agents.
More comparisons
Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs GPT-5.5Gemini 3.5 Flash vs GPT-5.5Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs GPT-5.2Gemini 3.5 Flash vs GPT-5.2Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs GPT-5.1Gemini 3.5 Flash vs GPT-5.1Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs GPT-5Gemini 3.5 Flash vs GPT-5Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs GPT-5 miniGemini 3.5 Flash vs GPT-5 miniClaude Sonnet 4.6 vs OpenAI o3Gemini 3.5 Flash vs OpenAI o3