Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision vs GLM-4.6 Chat: which model should you choose?
We compared Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision and GLM-4.6 Chat on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision has the stronger average benchmark score; GLM-4.6 Chat is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision
Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision is a multimodal model from Anthropic. It offers a 400,000-token context window, costs $13.96 per million input tokens and $56.28 per million output tokens, and averages 81.0 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $13.96 / 1M
- Output
- $56.28 / 1M
- Context
- 400,000
- Avg score
- 81.0
- Open weights
- No
GLM-4.6 Chat
GLM-4.6 Chat is a multimodal model from Zhipu AI. It offers a 400,000-token context window, costs $4.89 per million input tokens and $21.46 per million output tokens, and averages 79.8 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $4.89 / 1M
- Output
- $21.46 / 1M
- Context
- 400,000
- Avg score
- 79.8
- Open weights
- Yes
Specification comparison
| Spec | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision | GLM-4.6 Chat | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $13.96 | $4.89 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $56.28 | $21.46 | B |
| Context window | 400,000 | 400,000 | Tie |
| Max output | 8,192 | 16,384 | B |
| Average score | 81.0 | 79.8 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1429.6 | 1437.7 | B |
| Open weights | No | Yes | B |
Benchmark comparison
Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision wins 7, GLM-4.6 Chat wins 5, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision | GLM-4.6 Chat | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 82.5 | 82.2 | 0.3 | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision |
| GPQA Diamond | 77.3 | 72.8 | 4.5 | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision |
| SWE-bench Verified | 72.2 | 66.0 | 6.2 | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision |
| HumanEval | 85.4 | 86.3 | 0.9 | GLM-4.6 Chat |
| MATH-500 | 84.8 | 86.8 | 2.0 | GLM-4.6 Chat |
| AIME 2025 | 80.9 | 79.2 | 1.7 | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision |
| LiveCodeBench | 75.7 | 69.6 | 6.1 | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision |
| IFEval | 87.9 | 87.8 | 0.1 | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision |
| TruthfulQA | 81.6 | 83.2 | 1.6 | GLM-4.6 Chat |
| HellaSwag | 89.4 | 89.9 | 0.5 | GLM-4.6 Chat |
| MMMU | 73.8 | 73.5 | 0.3 | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision |
| Arena Elo | 1429.6 | 1437.7 | 8.1 | GLM-4.6 Chat |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision costs about $24.54 per million tokens and GLM-4.6 Chat costs about $9.03. GLM-4.6 Chat is roughly 63% cheaper than Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Both models list a 400,000-token context window. That is enough for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision wins 7, GLM-4.6 Chat wins 5, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision leads GLM-4.6 Chat by 1.2 points (81.0 versus 79.8).
The price picture favours GLM-4.6 Chat. The context picture is effectively a tie. 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 Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision for quality-sensitive work and GLM-4.6 Chat 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 Vision if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
Choose GLM-4.6 Chat if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 16,384-token output limit.
- You need open weights for self-hosting or fine-tuning.
FAQ
Is Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision better than GLM-4.6 Chat?
On the index average, Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision leads GLM-4.6 Chat by 1.2 points (81.0 versus 79.8). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision wins 7 benchmarks, GLM-4.6 Chat wins 5.
Which is cheaper, Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision or GLM-4.6 Chat?
GLM-4.6 Chat is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $9.03 per million tokens, versus $24.54 for Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision.
Which has the larger context window?
Both models list a 400,000-token context window.
Are these models open weights?
Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision is proprietary; GLM-4.6 Chat is open weights.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision for quality-sensitive work and GLM-4.6 Chat for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.