Grok 4.6 vs Claude Opus 5
Side-by-side comparison of API pricing, specs, benchmarks, and capabilities
| Specification |
by xAI
|
by Anthropic
|
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Status | Current flagship | Current flagship |
| Released | Aug 12, 2026 | Jul 24, 2026 |
| Pricing per million tokens | ||
| Input | $2.00/Mtok | $5.00/Mtok |
| Output | $6.00/Mtok | $25.00/Mtok |
| Blended avg | $3.00/Mtok | $10.00/Mtok |
| Cached input | $0.500/Mtok | $0.500/Mtok |
| Specifications | ||
| Context window | 500K tokens | 1M tokens |
| Parameters | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Speed (TPS) | — | — |
| Modalities | ||
| Input |
textimage
|
textimage
|
| Benchmarks sources: Artificial Analysis / Vellum LLM Leaderboard | ||
| Independent composite scores measured for both models — each on its own scale | ||
| AA Intelligence Index | 60.9 | 63.1 |
| AA Agentic Index | 58.7 | 59.2 |
| AA-Omniscience Index (−100–100) | 30.5 | 37.1 |
| GDPval-AA v2 | 1749.2 ELO | 1848.8 ELO |
| LMSYS Chatbot Arena | 1463.6 ELO | — |
| Per-benchmark results published for Claude Opus 5 only — no independent per-benchmark scores exist for Grok 4.6 yet | ||
| Avg benchmark score | — | 84.2 |
| Perf / dollar | — | 8.4 |
| SWE-Bench Verified | — | 97 |
| BrowseComp | — | 90.8 |
| Humanity's Last Exam | — | 64.7 |
| AutoBench | — | 26 |
| Providers | ||
| Available from |
xAI — $2.00/$6.00/Mtok
|
Anthropic — $5.00/$25.00/Mtok
|
Cost at scale
1M tokens · 50/50 input/output| Volume | Grok 4.6 | Claude Opus 5 | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1M tokens | $3 | $10 | $7 (70%) |
| 10M tokens | $30 | $100 | $70 (70%) |
| 100M tokens | $300 | $1000 | $700 (70%) |
| 1000M tokens | $3000 | $10000 | $7000 (70%) |
When to pick which
distilled from the pricing and spec data above- cost dominates: $3.00/Mtok blended vs $10.00 — 70% less on the same 50/50 token mix
- your workload re-reads context (agents, RAG, long chats): cached input costs $0.500/Mtok — 90% off its list input price
- you need the longer context: 1M tokens vs 500K (2×)
The cheaper option here — Grok 4.6 costs $3.00/Mtok blended on xAI.
Summary
Grok 4.6 by xAI costs $2.00/Mtok input and $6.00/Mtok output, with a 500K-token context window. It supports text, image input.
Claude Opus 5 by Anthropic costs $5.00/Mtok input and $25.00/Mtok output, with a 1M-token context window. It supports text, image input.
On a blended cost basis, Grok 4.6 is 70% cheaper than Claude Opus 5.
The two aren't directly comparable on average benchmark score: Claude Opus 5 has published per-benchmark results, while Grok 4.6 does not yet — it is measured today on independent composites (see the table above).
Note: Pricing is per million tokens. Actual costs vary with usage patterns, prompt caching, and batch discounts. Always verify against official provider pricing pages.