ANTHROPIC VS XAI
Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Grok 4.5
Grok 4.5 is about 2.0x cheaper than Claude Sonnet 4.6 on a blended 3:1 input:output rate — the same 10K-in/2K-out request costs $0.032 vs $0.06. Claude Sonnet 4.6 has the larger context window (1,000,000 vs 500,000 tokens).
Pricing verified
API pricing per 1M tokens
| Model | Input / 1M tokens | Output / 1M tokens | Blended (3:1 mix) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 | $3.00 | $15.00 | $6.00 |
| Grok 4.5 | $2.00 | $6.00 | $3.00 |
Rates from official Anthropic pricing and official xAI 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 Sonnet 4.6 | $0.06 | $6,000 | +$2,800 |
| Grok 4.5 | $0.032 | $3,200 | — |
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 Sonnet 4.6 | Grok 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | xAI |
| Context window | 1,000,000 tokens | 500,000 tokens |
| Model class | General text | Reasoning |
| Tokenizer | Proprietary (counts estimated) | Proprietary (counts estimated) |
Count tokens for each model on its own page: Claude Sonnet 4.6 token counter and Grok 4.5 token counter. All Anthropic models are on the Claude Token Counter. All xAI models are on the Grok Token Counter.
FAQ
Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Grok 4.5 FAQ
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Grok 4.5?
Grok 4.5 is cheaper. At rates checked 2026-08-11, Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs $3.00 input / $15.00 output per 1M tokens, while Grok 4.5 costs $2.00 input / $6.00 output — about a 2.0x difference on a typical 3:1 input-heavy workload.
How much does a real request cost on Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Grok 4.5?
A request with 10,000 input tokens and 2,000 output tokens costs about $0.06 on Claude Sonnet 4.6 and $0.032 on Grok 4.5. At 100,000 such requests per month that is $6,000 vs $3,200 — a difference of $2,800 per month.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Grok 4.5?
Claude Sonnet 4.6. It supports 1,000,000 tokens of context versus 500,000 tokens — roughly 750,000 English words in one request.
Do Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Grok 4.5 count tokens the same way?
Not exactly. Claude Sonnet 4.6 uses a proprietary tokenizer (counts are estimates) and Grok 4.5 uses a proprietary tokenizer (counts are estimates). The same prompt will tokenize differently, which shifts effective cost per word.