Head-to-Head Model Pricing & Benchmark Breakdown
Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-5.6 Sol: API Pricing, Latency & Cost Calculator (2026)
Comprehensive side-by-side cost simulator, 1M context token economics, prompt caching discounts, and SWE-bench comparison.
Adjust Your Custom Token Workload
Monthly Requests100k
Input Tokens / Req3000
Output Tokens / Req600
Prompt Cache %65%
Claude Sonnet 5 is 6.4% More Cost-Effective
Saves $58.50 per month ($702.00/yr) at this volume.
Annualized Savings$702.00
Anthropic
Most EconomicalClaude Sonnet 5
Total Monthly Cost
$849.00 / month
$8.49 per 1,000 requestsInput Tokens / 1M:$2.00
Cached Input / 1M:$0.200
Output Tokens / 1M:$10.00
Context Window:1M
Inference Speed:~90 TPS
OpenAI
GPT-5.6 Sol
Total Monthly Cost
$907.50 / month
$9.08 per 1,000 requestsInput Tokens / 1M:$2.00
Cached Input / 1M:$0.500
Output Tokens / 1M:$10.00
Context Window:1.1M
Inference Speed:~100 TPS
The Verdict: Which Model Wins on Cost & ROI?
Both frontier flagships share identical baseline pricing ($2.00 input / $10.00 output per 1M tokens) with 1M+ context windows. Claude Sonnet 5 provides a 90% prompt caching discount ($0.20/1M cached vs $0.50/1M on GPT-5.6 Sol) and leads in software engineering benchmarks (97.4% SWE-bench), while GPT-5.6 Sol excels in real-time multimodal audio/video throughput.
Key Architectural & Economic Differences
- Claude Sonnet 5 offers up to 90% prompt cache read discount ($0.20/1M) vs GPT-5.6 Sol 75% discount ($0.50/1M).
- Identical baseline token pricing ($2.00 input / $10.00 output per 1M tokens).
- Claude Sonnet 5 features 1,000,000 token context and 64,000 max output tokens.
- GPT-5.6 Sol supports 1,050,000 token context and unified multimodal omni streaming.
When to Choose Claude Sonnet 5
- • Autonomous software engineering and complex multi-file coding copilots
- • Workloads heavily utilizing prompt caching where 90% discount dominates input costs
- • Nuanced reasoning and multi-turn agent execution loops
When to Choose GPT-5.6 Sol
- • Native real-time multimodal audio, video, and image generation pipelines
- • High-throughput enterprise customer workflows on the OpenAI platform
- • General enterprise intelligence requiring 1.05M context
Detailed Spec & Pricing Comparison Table
| Specification / Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Anthropic) | GPT-5.6 Sol (OpenAI) | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input Price / 1M Tokens | $2.00 | $2.00 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| Cached Input Price / 1M | $0.200 (90%) | $0.500 (75%) | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| Output Price / 1M Tokens | $10.00 | $10.00 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| Context Window | 1M | 1.1M | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| Inference Speed (Tokens/Sec) | ~90 TPS | ~100 TPS | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| MMLU Benchmark Score | 93.8% | 93.4% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Claude Sonnet 5 is significantly cheaper when prompt caching is utilized. Anthropic charges $0.20 per 1M cached input tokens (a 90% discount from $2.00), whereas OpenAI charges $0.50 per 1M cached tokens (a 75% discount from $2.00).
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