ANTHROPIC VS GOOGLE
Claude Sonnet 5 vs Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is about 4.7x cheaper than Claude Sonnet 5 on a blended 3:1 input:output rate — the same 10K-in/2K-out request costs $0.008 vs $0.04. Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite 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 Sonnet 5 | $2.00 | $10.00 | $4.00 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | $0.30 | $2.50 | $0.85 |
Rates from official Anthropic pricing and official Google pricing, checked 2026-08-11. Note: Launch pricing through 2026-08-31; standard rate is $3 in / $15 out per MTok afterwards.
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 5 | $0.04 | $4,000 | +$3,200 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | $0.008 | $800 | — |
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 5 | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | |
| Context window | 1,000,000 tokens | 1,048,576 tokens |
| Model class | General text | General text |
| Tokenizer | Proprietary (counts estimated) | Proprietary (counts estimated) |
Count tokens for each model on its own page: Claude Sonnet 5 token counter and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite token counter. All Anthropic models are on the Claude Token Counter. All Google models are on the Gemini Token Counter.
FAQ
Claude Sonnet 5 vs Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite FAQ
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5 or Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite?
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is cheaper. At rates checked 2026-08-11, Claude Sonnet 5 costs $2.00 input / $10.00 output per 1M tokens, while Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite costs $0.30 input / $2.50 output — about a 4.7x difference on a typical 3:1 input-heavy workload.
How much does a real request cost on Claude Sonnet 5 vs Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite?
A request with 10,000 input tokens and 2,000 output tokens costs about $0.04 on Claude Sonnet 5 and $0.008 on Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite. At 100,000 such requests per month that is $4,000 vs $800 — a difference of $3,200 per month.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Sonnet 5 or Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite?
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite. It supports 1,048,576 tokens of context versus 1,000,000 tokens — roughly 786,000 English words in one request.
Do Claude Sonnet 5 and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite count tokens the same way?
Not exactly. Claude Sonnet 5 uses a proprietary tokenizer (counts are estimates) and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite uses a proprietary tokenizer (counts are estimates). The same prompt will tokenize differently, which shifts effective cost per word.