Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Claude Sonnet 5

Claude Sonnet 4.6 (2026) and Claude Sonnet 5 (2026) are frontier-tier reasoning models from Anthropic. Both ship a 1m-token context window. On SWE-bench Verified, Claude Sonnet 5 leads by 5.6 pts. On pricing, Claude Sonnet 5 costs $2/1M input tokens versus $3/1M for the alternative. This comparison covers specs, pricing, API access, capabilities, benchmarks, input and output token costs, and production fit for coding and agent workloads.

Claude Sonnet 5 is ~50% cheaper at $2/1M; pay for Claude Sonnet 4.6 only for coding workflow support.

Decision scorecard

Local evidence first
SignalClaude Sonnet 4.6Claude Sonnet 5
Best forreasoning-heavy apps, multimodal apps, and tool-calling agentsreasoning-heavy apps, multimodal apps, and tool-calling agents
Decision fitCoding, RAG, and AgentsCoding, RAG, and Agents
Context window1m1m
Cheapest output$15/1M tokens$10/1M tokens
Provider routes6 tracked5 tracked
Shared benchmarks4 sharedSWE-bench Verified leader

Decision tradeoffs

Choose Claude Sonnet 4.6 when...
  • Claude Sonnet 4.6 holds a shared-benchmark lead on CursorBench, ahead by 24.9 points.
  • Claude Sonnet 4.6 has broader tracked provider coverage for fallback and route flexibility.
  • Claude Sonnet 4.6 uniquely exposes Computer use and Parallel agents in local model data.
  • Local decision data tags Claude Sonnet 4.6 for Coding, RAG, and Agents.
Choose Claude Sonnet 5 when...
  • Claude Sonnet 5 holds a shared-benchmark lead on SWE-bench Verified, ahead by 5.6 points.
  • Claude Sonnet 5 has the lower cheapest tracked output price at $10/1M tokens.
  • Local decision data tags Claude Sonnet 5 for Coding, RAG, and Agents.

Monthly cost at traffic

Estimate token spend from the cheapest tracked input and output route or tier on this page.

Lower estimate Claude Sonnet 5

Claude Sonnet 4.6

$6,150

Cheapest tracked route/tier: OpenRouter

Claude Sonnet 5

$4,100

Cheapest tracked route/tier: Anthropic

Estimated monthly gap: $2,050. Batch, cache, alternate speed tiers, and negotiated pricing are excluded from this local estimate.

Switch friction

Claude Sonnet 4.6 -> Claude Sonnet 5
  • Provider overlap exists on Anthropic, AWS Bedrock, and GCP Vertex AI; start route-level A/B tests there.
  • Claude Sonnet 5 is $5/1M tokens lower on cheapest tracked output pricing before cache, batch, or negotiated discounts.
  • Check replacement coverage for Computer use and Parallel agents before moving production traffic.
Claude Sonnet 5 -> Claude Sonnet 4.6
  • Provider overlap exists on OpenRouter, Anthropic, and AWS Bedrock; start route-level A/B tests there.
  • Claude Sonnet 4.6 is $5/1M tokens higher on cheapest tracked output pricing, so quality gains need to justify the spend.
  • Claude Sonnet 4.6 adds Computer use and Parallel agents in local capability data.

Specs

Specification
Released2026-02-172026-06-30
Context window1m1m
Parameters——
ArchitectureDecoder OnlyDecoder Only
LicenseProprietaryProprietary
OpennessProprietaryProprietary
WeightsNot releasedNot released
CodeUnknownUnknown
Commercial useCommercial use: conditionalCommercial use: conditional
Knowledge cutoff2025-082026-01

Pricing and availability

Pricing attributeClaude Sonnet 4.6Claude Sonnet 5
Input price$3/1M tokens$2/1M tokens
Output price$15/1M tokens$10/1M tokens
Providers
OpenRouterAnthropicAWS BedrockGCP Vertex AIMicrosoft FoundryVercel AI Gateway
AnthropicAWS BedrockGCP Vertex AIOpenRouterMicrosoft Foundry

Capabilities

CapabilityClaude Sonnet 4.6Claude Sonnet 5
VisionYesYes
MultimodalYesYes
ReasoningYesYes
JSON / Tool useYesYes
Structured outputsYesYes
Code executionYesYes
IDE integrationNoNo
Computer useYesNo
Parallel agentsYesNo

Benchmarks

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Claude Sonnet 5
SWE-bench Verified79.685.2
Humanity's Last Exam33.243.2
CursorBench49.024.1
SWE-bench Multilingual75.978.3

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Last reviewed: 2026-07-26. Data sourced from public model cards and provider documentation.