Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max vs Gemini 2.5 Pro Max: which model should you choose?
We compared Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max and Gemini 2.5 Pro Max on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Gemini 2.5 Pro Max has the stronger average benchmark score; Gemini 2.5 Pro Max is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max
Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max is a frontier model from Anthropic. It offers a 128,000-token context window, costs $16.88 per million input tokens and $83.20 per million output tokens, and averages 83.7 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $16.88 / 1M
- Output
- $83.20 / 1M
- Context
- 128,000
- Avg score
- 83.7
- Open weights
- No
Gemini 2.5 Pro Max
Gemini 2.5 Pro Max is a frontier model from Google DeepMind. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $16.94 per million input tokens and $64.80 per million output tokens, and averages 84.8 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $16.94 / 1M
- Output
- $64.80 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 84.8
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $16.88 | $16.94 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $83.20 | $64.80 | B |
| Context window | 128,000 | 200,000 | B |
| Max output | 32,768 | 65,536 | B |
| Average score | 83.7 | 84.8 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1461.6 | 1450.2 | A |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max wins 3, Gemini 2.5 Pro Max wins 9, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 86.0 | 86.7 | 0.7 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max |
| GPQA Diamond | 76.8 | 79.8 | 3.0 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max |
| SWE-bench Verified | 76.1 | 75.5 | 0.6 | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max |
| HumanEval | 90.9 | 87.0 | 3.9 | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max |
| MATH-500 | 87.2 | 91.6 | 4.4 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max |
| AIME 2025 | 80.7 | 82.6 | 1.9 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max |
| LiveCodeBench | 78.1 | 79.9 | 1.8 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max |
| IFEval | 90.0 | 91.3 | 1.3 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max |
| TruthfulQA | 84.7 | 85.5 | 0.8 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max |
| HellaSwag | 91.2 | 92.9 | 1.7 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max |
| MMMU | 78.8 | 79.7 | 0.9 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max |
| Arena Elo | 1461.6 | 1450.2 | 11.4 | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max costs about $33.46 per million tokens and Gemini 2.5 Pro Max costs about $28.91. Gemini 2.5 Pro Max is roughly 14% cheaper than Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Gemini 2.5 Pro Max has the larger context window at 200,000 tokens, compared with 128,000 for Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max wins 3, Gemini 2.5 Pro Max wins 9, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Gemini 2.5 Pro Max leads Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max by 1.1 points (84.8 versus 83.7).
The price picture favours Gemini 2.5 Pro Max. The context picture favours Gemini 2.5 Pro Max. Those two dimensions often matter more than a few benchmark points once a model is good enough for the task.
If you need a single default, start with Gemini 2.5 Pro Max for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.
Choose Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max if
- You prefer Anthropic's tooling or already use it.
Choose Gemini 2.5 Pro Max if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 200,000-token context window.
- You need the larger 65,536-token output limit.
FAQ
Is Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max better than Gemini 2.5 Pro Max?
On the index average, Gemini 2.5 Pro Max leads Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max by 1.1 points (84.8 versus 83.7). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max wins 3 benchmarks, Gemini 2.5 Pro Max wins 9.
Which is cheaper, Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max or Gemini 2.5 Pro Max?
Gemini 2.5 Pro Max is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $28.91 per million tokens, versus $33.46 for Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max.
Which has the larger context window?
Gemini 2.5 Pro Max has the larger context window at 200,000 tokens. Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max has 128,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max is proprietary; Gemini 2.5 Pro Max is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Gemini 2.5 Pro Max for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.