Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning vs GPT-4.1 Reasoning: which model should you choose?
We compared Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning and GPT-4.1 Reasoning on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. GPT-4.1 Reasoning has the stronger average benchmark score; Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning
Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning is a frontier model from Anthropic. It offers a 128,000-token context window, costs $16.30 per million input tokens and $77.62 per million output tokens, and averages 83.7 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $16.30 / 1M
- Output
- $77.62 / 1M
- Context
- 128,000
- Avg score
- 83.7
- Open weights
- No
GPT-4.1 Reasoning
GPT-4.1 Reasoning is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $16.97 per million input tokens and $82.05 per million output tokens, and averages 83.8 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $16.97 / 1M
- Output
- $82.05 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 83.8
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning | GPT-4.1 Reasoning | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $16.30 | $16.97 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $77.62 | $82.05 | A |
| Context window | 128,000 | 1,000,000 | B |
| Max output | 128,000 | 4,096 | A |
| Average score | 83.7 | 83.8 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1464.4 | 1466.7 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning wins 5, GPT-4.1 Reasoning wins 7, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning | GPT-4.1 Reasoning | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 86.4 | 87.3 | 0.9 | GPT-4.1 Reasoning |
| GPQA Diamond | 81.3 | 77.8 | 3.5 | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning |
| SWE-bench Verified | 71.0 | 73.1 | 2.1 | GPT-4.1 Reasoning |
| HumanEval | 89.2 | 88.8 | 0.4 | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning |
| MATH-500 | 90.3 | 89.1 | 1.2 | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning |
| AIME 2025 | 79.8 | 82.1 | 2.3 | GPT-4.1 Reasoning |
| LiveCodeBench | 79.6 | 80.5 | 0.9 | GPT-4.1 Reasoning |
| IFEval | 90.1 | 91.6 | 1.5 | GPT-4.1 Reasoning |
| TruthfulQA | 86.2 | 84.3 | 1.9 | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning |
| HellaSwag | 90.4 | 89.4 | 1.0 | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning |
| MMMU | 76.5 | 77.5 | 1.0 | GPT-4.1 Reasoning |
| Arena Elo | 1464.4 | 1466.7 | 2.3 | GPT-4.1 Reasoning |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning costs about $31.63 per million tokens and GPT-4.1 Reasoning costs about $33.24. Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning is roughly 5% cheaper than GPT-4.1 Reasoning. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
GPT-4.1 Reasoning has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens, compared with 128,000 for Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning wins 5, GPT-4.1 Reasoning wins 7, and 0 are tied. On the index average, GPT-4.1 Reasoning leads Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning by 0.1 points (83.8 versus 83.7).
The price picture favours Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning. The context picture favours GPT-4.1 Reasoning. 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 Reasoning for quality-sensitive work and Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 128,000-token output limit.
Choose GPT-4.1 Reasoning if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- You need the larger 1,000,000-token context window.
FAQ
Is Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning better than GPT-4.1 Reasoning?
On the index average, GPT-4.1 Reasoning leads Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning by 0.1 points (83.8 versus 83.7). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning wins 5 benchmarks, GPT-4.1 Reasoning wins 7.
Which is cheaper, Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning or GPT-4.1 Reasoning?
Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $31.63 per million tokens, versus $33.24 for GPT-4.1 Reasoning.
Which has the larger context window?
GPT-4.1 Reasoning has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens. Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning has 128,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning is proprietary; GPT-4.1 Reasoning is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with GPT-4.1 Reasoning for quality-sensitive work and Claude 3.7 Sonnet Reasoning for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.