Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max vs GPT-4.1 Max: which model should you choose?
We compared Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max and GPT-4.1 Max on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. GPT-4.1 Max has the stronger average benchmark score; GPT-4.1 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
GPT-4.1 Max
GPT-4.1 Max is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 400,000-token context window, costs $17.34 per million input tokens and $66.38 per million output tokens, and averages 84.7 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $17.34 / 1M
- Output
- $66.38 / 1M
- Context
- 400,000
- Avg score
- 84.7
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max | GPT-4.1 Max | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $16.88 | $17.34 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $83.20 | $66.38 | B |
| Context window | 128,000 | 400,000 | B |
| Max output | 32,768 | 8,192 | A |
| Average score | 83.7 | 84.7 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1461.6 | 1467.6 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max wins 3, GPT-4.1 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 | GPT-4.1 Max | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 86.0 | 87.4 | 1.4 | GPT-4.1 Max |
| GPQA Diamond | 76.8 | 81.2 | 4.4 | GPT-4.1 Max |
| SWE-bench Verified | 76.1 | 74.8 | 1.3 | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max |
| HumanEval | 90.9 | 88.8 | 2.1 | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max |
| MATH-500 | 87.2 | 87.3 | 0.1 | GPT-4.1 Max |
| AIME 2025 | 80.7 | 84.9 | 4.2 | GPT-4.1 Max |
| LiveCodeBench | 78.1 | 78.5 | 0.4 | GPT-4.1 Max |
| IFEval | 90.0 | 92.1 | 2.1 | GPT-4.1 Max |
| TruthfulQA | 84.7 | 85.4 | 0.7 | GPT-4.1 Max |
| HellaSwag | 91.2 | 90.7 | 0.5 | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max |
| MMMU | 78.8 | 80.5 | 1.7 | GPT-4.1 Max |
| Arena Elo | 1461.6 | 1467.6 | 6.0 | GPT-4.1 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 GPT-4.1 Max costs about $29.60. GPT-4.1 Max is roughly 12% 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.
GPT-4.1 Max has the larger context window at 400,000 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, GPT-4.1 Max wins 9, and 0 are tied. On the index average, GPT-4.1 Max leads Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max by 1.0 points (84.7 versus 83.7).
The price picture favours GPT-4.1 Max. The context picture favours GPT-4.1 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 GPT-4.1 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 need the larger 32,768-token output limit.
Choose GPT-4.1 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 400,000-token context window.
FAQ
Is Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max better than GPT-4.1 Max?
On the index average, GPT-4.1 Max leads Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max by 1.0 points (84.7 versus 83.7). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max wins 3 benchmarks, GPT-4.1 Max wins 9.
Which is cheaper, Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max or GPT-4.1 Max?
GPT-4.1 Max is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $29.60 per million tokens, versus $33.46 for Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max.
Which has the larger context window?
GPT-4.1 Max has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens. Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max has 128,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Claude 3.7 Sonnet Max is proprietary; GPT-4.1 Max is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with GPT-4.1 Max for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.