ANTHROPIC VS GOOGLE
Claude Opus 4.8 vs Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview
Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview is about 2.2x cheaper than Claude Opus 4.8 on a blended 3:1 input:output rate — the same 10K-in/2K-out request costs $0.044 vs $0.10. Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview has the larger context window (1,048,576 vs 1,000,000 tokens).
Pricing verified
API pricing per 1M tokens
| Model | Input / 1M tokens | Output / 1M tokens | Blended (3:1 mix) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus 4.8 | $5.00 | $25.00 | $10.00 |
| Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview | $2.00 | $12.00 | $4.50 |
Rates from official Anthropic pricing and official Google pricing, checked 2026-08-11.
What a real workload costs
Example: one request with 10,000 input tokens and 2,000 output tokens, then that request at 100,000 runs per month.
| Model | Per request (10K in / 2K out) | Per month (100K requests) | Monthly delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus 4.8 | $0.10 | $10,000 | +$5,600 |
| Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview | $0.044 | $4,400 | — |
Model your own prompt sizes and volumes in the token cost analyzer, or check caching savings with the prompt caching calculator.
Specs side by side
| Spec | Claude Opus 4.8 | Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | |
| Context window | 1,000,000 tokens | 1,048,576 tokens |
| Model class | Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Tokenizer | Proprietary (counts estimated) | Proprietary (counts estimated) |
Count tokens for each model on its own page: Claude Opus 4.8 token counter and Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview token counter. All Anthropic models are on the Claude Token Counter. All Google models are on the Gemini Token Counter.
FAQ
Claude Opus 4.8 vs Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview FAQ
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.8 or Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview?
Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview is cheaper. At rates checked 2026-08-11, Claude Opus 4.8 costs $5.00 input / $25.00 output per 1M tokens, while Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview costs $2.00 input / $12.00 output — about a 2.2x difference on a typical 3:1 input-heavy workload.
How much does a real request cost on Claude Opus 4.8 vs Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview?
A request with 10,000 input tokens and 2,000 output tokens costs about $0.10 on Claude Opus 4.8 and $0.044 on Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview. At 100,000 such requests per month that is $10,000 vs $4,400 — a difference of $5,600 per month.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Opus 4.8 or Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview?
Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview. It supports 1,048,576 tokens of context versus 1,000,000 tokens — roughly 786,000 English words in one request.
Do Claude Opus 4.8 and Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview count tokens the same way?
Not exactly. Claude Opus 4.8 uses a proprietary tokenizer (counts are estimates) and Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview uses a proprietary tokenizer (counts are estimates). The same prompt will tokenize differently, which shifts effective cost per word.