Claude Opus 4.5 Vision vs Gemini 3 Pro Vision: which model should you choose?
We compared Claude Opus 4.5 Vision and Gemini 3 Pro Vision on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Claude Opus 4.5 Vision has the stronger average benchmark score; Gemini 3 Pro Vision is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Claude Opus 4.5 Vision
Claude Opus 4.5 Vision is a frontier model from Anthropic. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $17.70 per million input tokens and $74.84 per million output tokens, and averages 85.9 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $17.70 / 1M
- Output
- $74.84 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 85.9
- Open weights
- No
Gemini 3 Pro Vision
Gemini 3 Pro Vision is a frontier model from Google DeepMind. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $17.59 per million input tokens and $68.83 per million output tokens, and averages 85.5 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $17.59 / 1M
- Output
- $68.83 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 85.5
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Claude Opus 4.5 Vision | Gemini 3 Pro Vision | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $17.70 | $17.59 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $74.84 | $68.83 | B |
| Context window | 200,000 | 200,000 | Tie |
| Max output | 32,768 | 128,000 | B |
| Average score | 85.9 | 85.5 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1452.2 | 1458.1 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Claude Opus 4.5 Vision wins 7, Gemini 3 Pro Vision wins 5, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.5 Vision | Gemini 3 Pro Vision | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 86.9 | 87.3 | 0.4 | Gemini 3 Pro Vision |
| GPQA Diamond | 80.7 | 80.6 | 0.1 | Claude Opus 4.5 Vision |
| SWE-bench Verified | 77.7 | 76.5 | 1.2 | Claude Opus 4.5 Vision |
| HumanEval | 88.2 | 91.6 | 3.4 | Gemini 3 Pro Vision |
| MATH-500 | 91.9 | 88.4 | 3.5 | Claude Opus 4.5 Vision |
| AIME 2025 | 85.4 | 87.3 | 1.9 | Gemini 3 Pro Vision |
| LiveCodeBench | 80.1 | 79.2 | 0.9 | Claude Opus 4.5 Vision |
| IFEval | 92.6 | 90.4 | 2.2 | Claude Opus 4.5 Vision |
| TruthfulQA | 86.9 | 84.5 | 2.4 | Claude Opus 4.5 Vision |
| HellaSwag | 91.4 | 91.1 | 0.3 | Claude Opus 4.5 Vision |
| MMMU | 83.2 | 83.6 | 0.4 | Gemini 3 Pro Vision |
| Arena Elo | 1452.2 | 1458.1 | 5.9 | Gemini 3 Pro Vision |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Claude Opus 4.5 Vision costs about $31.98 per million tokens and Gemini 3 Pro Vision costs about $30.40. Gemini 3 Pro Vision is roughly 5% cheaper than Claude Opus 4.5 Vision. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Both models list a 200,000-token context window. That is enough for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Claude Opus 4.5 Vision wins 7, Gemini 3 Pro Vision wins 5, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Claude Opus 4.5 Vision leads Gemini 3 Pro Vision by 0.4 points (85.9 versus 85.5).
The price picture favours Gemini 3 Pro Vision. 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 Opus 4.5 Vision for quality-sensitive work and Gemini 3 Pro Vision for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose Claude Opus 4.5 Vision if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
Choose Gemini 3 Pro Vision if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 128,000-token output limit.
FAQ
Is Claude Opus 4.5 Vision better than Gemini 3 Pro Vision?
On the index average, Claude Opus 4.5 Vision leads Gemini 3 Pro Vision by 0.4 points (85.9 versus 85.5). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Claude Opus 4.5 Vision wins 7 benchmarks, Gemini 3 Pro Vision wins 5.
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.5 Vision or Gemini 3 Pro Vision?
Gemini 3 Pro Vision is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $30.40 per million tokens, versus $31.98 for Claude Opus 4.5 Vision.
Which has the larger context window?
Both models list a 200,000-token context window.
Are these models open weights?
Claude Opus 4.5 Vision is proprietary; Gemini 3 Pro Vision is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Claude Opus 4.5 Vision for quality-sensitive work and Gemini 3 Pro Vision for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.