Price Per TokenPrice Per Token
Anthropic
Anthropic
vs
Google
Google

Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Gemini 3 Pro Preview

A detailed comparison of pricing, benchmarks, and capabilities

Best Coding Model Leaderboard Find the top LLM for coding by benchmarks and community votes

114 out of our 298 tracked models have had a price change in February.

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Key Takeaways

Claude Sonnet 4.6 wins:

  • No clear advantages in compared metrics

Gemini 3 Pro Preview wins:

  • Cheaper input tokens
  • Cheaper output tokens
  • Larger context window
  • Faster response time
  • Higher intelligence benchmark
  • Better at coding
  • Better at math
Price Advantage
Gemini 3 Pro Preview
Benchmark Advantage
Gemini 3 Pro Preview
Context Window
Gemini 3 Pro Preview
Speed
Gemini 3 Pro Preview

Pricing Comparison

Price Comparison

MetricClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3 Pro PreviewWinner
Input (per 1M tokens)$3.00$2.00 Gemini 3 Pro Preview
Output (per 1M tokens)$15.00$12.00 Gemini 3 Pro Preview
Cache Read (per 1M)$300000.00$200000.00 Gemini 3 Pro Preview
Cache Write (per 1M)$3750000.00$375000.00 Gemini 3 Pro Preview
Using a 3:1 input/output ratio, Gemini 3 Pro Preview is 25% cheaper overall.

Claude Sonnet 4.6 Providers

Amazon Bedrock $3.00 (Cheapest)
Google $3.00 (Cheapest)
Anthropic $3.00 (Cheapest)

Gemini 3 Pro Preview Providers

Google AI Studio $2.00 (Cheapest)
Google $2.00 (Cheapest)

Benchmark Comparison

6
Benchmarks Compared
0
Claude Sonnet 4.6 Wins
2
Gemini 3 Pro Preview Wins

Benchmark Scores

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3 Pro PreviewWinner
Intelligence Index
Overall intelligence score
44.348.4
Coding Index
Code generation & understanding
46.446.5-
Math Index
Mathematical reasoning
-95.7-
MMLU Pro
Academic knowledge
-89.8-
GPQA
Graduate-level science
79.990.8
LiveCodeBench
Competitive programming
-91.7-
Gemini 3 Pro Preview shows stronger mathematical reasoning abilities.

Cost vs Quality

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Other models

Context & Performance

Context Window

Claude Sonnet 4.6
1,000,000
tokens
Max output: 128,000 tokens
Gemini 3 Pro Preview
1,048,576
tokens
Max output: 65,536 tokens
Gemini 3 Pro Preview has a 5% larger context window.

Speed Performance

MetricClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3 Pro PreviewWinner
Tokens/second56.3 tok/s124.2 tok/s
Time to First Token0.80s34.57s
Gemini 3 Pro Preview responds 121% faster on average.

Capabilities

Feature Comparison

FeatureClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3 Pro Preview
Vision (Image Input)
Tool/Function Calls
Reasoning Mode
Audio Input
Audio Output
PDF Input
Prompt Caching
Web Search

License & Release

PropertyClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3 Pro Preview
LicenseProprietaryProprietary
AuthorAnthropicGoogle
ReleasedFeb 2026Nov 2025

Claude Sonnet 4.6 Modalities

Input
textimage
Output
text

Gemini 3 Pro Preview Modalities

Input
textimagefileaudiovideo
Output
text

Related Comparisons

Compare Claude Sonnet 4.6 with:

Compare Gemini 3 Pro Preview with:

Frequently Asked Questions

Gemini 3 Pro Preview has cheaper input pricing at $2.00/M tokens. Gemini 3 Pro Preview has cheaper output pricing at $12.00/M tokens.
Gemini 3 Pro Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks with a score of 46.5, compared to Claude Sonnet 4.6's score of 46.4.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 has a 1,000,000 token context window, while Gemini 3 Pro Preview has a 1,048,576 token context window.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 supports vision. Gemini 3 Pro Preview supports vision.