Which model is better: Claude 4.5 Sonnet or Grok 3 Mini?
Grok 3 Mini is 90.0% cheaper for input tokens ($0.30 vs. $3.00 per 1M tokens) and $1.20 vs. $15.00 for output tokens (10.0x cost advantage). In terms of operational performance, Grok 3 Mini delivers lower response latency at 150ms TTFT (230ms faster than Claude 4.5 Sonnet) with 160 vs. 84 tok/s throughput. Claude 4.5 Sonnet leads coding evaluations at 75.8% SWE-bench Verified vs. 54.0% for Grok 3 Mini and 84.2% vs. 68.0% on GPQA Diamond.
Verified daily via automated API latency tests and official documentation.
Zero-Shot RAG Verified
Verified Performance & Unit Economics Delta (12 Dimensions)
Daily synchronized metrics across token pricing, prompt cache economics, latency, throughput, and 5 capability benchmarks.
Metric / Dimension
Claude 4.5 Sonnet
Grok 3 Mini
Net Delta / Advantage
Input Cost / 1M Tokens
$3.00
$0.30
Grok 3 Mini is 10.0x cheaper
Output Cost / 1M Tokens
$15.00
$1.20
Grok 3 Mini (92.0% lower)
Prompt Cache Read / 1M
$0.300
$0.080
Grok 3 Mini is 3.8x cheaper
Prompt Cache Write / 1M
$3.75
$0.30
Grok 3 Mini is 12.5x cheaper
Context Window (Max Output)
205k (64k out)
131k (16k out)
Claude 4.5 Sonnet (1.6x larger context)
Avg TTFT Response Latency
380ms
150ms
Grok 3 Mini (230ms faster)
Generation Speed (Throughput)
84 tok/s
160 tok/s
Grok 3 Mini (+76 tok/s faster)
SWE-bench Verified (Coding)
75.8%
54%
Claude 4.5 Sonnet (+21.8% lead)
GPQA Diamond (PhD STEM)
84.2%
68%
Claude 4.5 Sonnet (+16.2% lead)
MMLU-Pro (Multi-Discipline)
90.4%
80%
Claude 4.5 Sonnet (+10.4% lead)
MATH-500 (Quantitative Logic)
97.5%
87%
Claude 4.5 Sonnet (+10.5% lead)
Inference Value Score (IVR)
56.5 / 100
69.2 / 100
Grok 3 Mini (+12.7 pts)
Interactive Monthly Token Economics & ROI Forecaster
Model production workloads across prompt, completion, and cached context tokens, or switch models on the fly.
Choose Grok 3 Mini (xAI) for high-speed reasoning model providing rapid answers and code generation with chain-of-thought capabilities at edge pricing — offering a 131k context window, 150ms TTFT, and $0.30/1M input pricing ($0.080/1M cached reads).
Which is cheaper: Claude 4.5 Sonnet or Grok 3 Mini?
Grok 3 Mini is cheaper at $0.30/1M input tokens ($1.20/1M output) compared to $3.00/1M input ($15.00/1M output) for Claude 4.5 Sonnet.
Which model has lower TTFT latency and higher tok/s throughput: Claude 4.5 Sonnet or Grok 3 Mini?
Grok 3 Mini delivers faster first-token latency at 150ms TTFT (160 tok/s throughput) compared to 380ms TTFT (84 tok/s) for Claude 4.5 Sonnet.
How do Claude 4.5 Sonnet and Grok 3 Mini compare on SWE-bench coding and GPQA Diamond reasoning?
On SWE-bench Verified software engineering, Claude 4.5 Sonnet scores 75.8% versus 54% for Grok 3 Mini. On GPQA Diamond graduate-level STEM reasoning, Claude 4.5 Sonnet scores 84.2% versus 68% for Grok 3 Mini (and 97.5% vs 87% on MATH-500).
When should you choose Claude 4.5 Sonnet?
Choose Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Anthropic) for end-to-end autonomous coding agents, complex multi-file debugging, browser/GUI automation, and high-precision technical writing — offering a 204k context window, 380ms TTFT, and $3.00/1M input pricing ($0.300/1M cached reads).
When should you choose Grok 3 Mini?
Choose Grok 3 Mini (xAI) for high-speed reasoning model providing rapid answers and code generation with chain-of-thought capabilities at edge pricing — offering a 131k context window, 150ms TTFT, and $0.30/1M input pricing ($0.080/1M cached reads).
