Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro vs Gemini 3 Pro: which model should you choose?
We compared Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro and Gemini 3 Pro on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro has the stronger average benchmark score; Gemini 3 Pro is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro is a frontier model from Anthropic. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $18.73 per million input tokens and $82.29 per million output tokens, and averages 86.7 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $18.73 / 1M
- Output
- $82.29 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 86.7
- Open weights
- No
Gemini 3 Pro
Gemini 3 Pro is a frontier model from Google DeepMind. It offers a 2,000,000-token context window, costs $18.24 per million input tokens and $82.93 per million output tokens, and averages 86.1 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $18.24 / 1M
- Output
- $82.93 / 1M
- Context
- 2,000,000
- Avg score
- 86.1
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro | Gemini 3 Pro | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $18.73 | $18.24 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $82.29 | $82.93 | A |
| Context window | 1,000,000 | 2,000,000 | B |
| Max output | 16,384 | 8,192 | A |
| Average score | 86.7 | 86.1 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1469.0 | 1460.7 | A |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro wins 8, Gemini 3 Pro wins 4, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro | Gemini 3 Pro | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 86.3 | 88.2 | 1.9 | Gemini 3 Pro |
| GPQA Diamond | 83.1 | 79.0 | 4.1 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro |
| SWE-bench Verified | 73.9 | 78.5 | 4.6 | Gemini 3 Pro |
| HumanEval | 92.7 | 91.8 | 0.9 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro |
| MATH-500 | 90.1 | 89.9 | 0.2 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro |
| AIME 2025 | 88.4 | 84.3 | 4.1 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro |
| LiveCodeBench | 81.9 | 83.3 | 1.4 | Gemini 3 Pro |
| IFEval | 94.1 | 93.7 | 0.4 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro |
| TruthfulQA | 86.1 | 88.8 | 2.7 | Gemini 3 Pro |
| HellaSwag | 92.6 | 91.3 | 1.3 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro |
| MMMU | 84.5 | 78.6 | 5.9 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro |
| Arena Elo | 1469.0 | 1460.7 | 8.3 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro costs about $34.62 per million tokens and Gemini 3 Pro costs about $34.41. Gemini 3 Pro is roughly 1% cheaper than Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Gemini 3 Pro has the larger context window at 2,000,000 tokens, compared with 1,000,000 for Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro wins 8, Gemini 3 Pro wins 4, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro leads Gemini 3 Pro by 0.6 points (86.7 versus 86.1).
The price picture favours Gemini 3 Pro. The context picture favours Gemini 3 Pro. 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 Sonnet 4.5 Pro for quality-sensitive work and Gemini 3 Pro for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- You need the larger 16,384-token output limit.
Choose Gemini 3 Pro if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 2,000,000-token context window.
FAQ
Is Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro better than Gemini 3 Pro?
On the index average, Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro leads Gemini 3 Pro by 0.6 points (86.7 versus 86.1). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro wins 8 benchmarks, Gemini 3 Pro wins 4.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro or Gemini 3 Pro?
Gemini 3 Pro is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $34.41 per million tokens, versus $34.62 for Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro.
Which has the larger context window?
Gemini 3 Pro has the larger context window at 2,000,000 tokens. Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro has 1,000,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro is proprietary; Gemini 3 Pro is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro for quality-sensitive work and Gemini 3 Pro for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.