Head-to-head · frontier vs frontier

Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro vs GPT-5.2 Vision: which model should you choose?

We compared Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro and GPT-5.2 Vision on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. GPT-5.2 Vision has the stronger average benchmark score; Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.

Anthropic

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
Full Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro page
OpenAI

GPT-5.2 Vision

GPT-5.2 Vision is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $19.03 per million input tokens and $85.72 per million output tokens, and averages 87.4 across the index's benchmark suite.

Input
$19.03 / 1M
Output
$85.72 / 1M
Context
1,000,000
Avg score
87.4
Open weights
No
Full GPT-5.2 Vision page

Specification comparison

SpecClaude Sonnet 4.5 ProGPT-5.2 VisionEdge
Input price / 1M$18.73$19.03A
Output price / 1M$82.29$85.72A
Context window1,000,0001,000,000Tie
Max output16,38416,384Tie
Average score86.787.4B
Arena Elo1469.01484.3B
Open weightsNoNoTie

Benchmark comparison

Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro wins 6, GPT-5.2 Vision wins 6, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5 ProGPT-5.2 VisionGapWinner
MMLU-Pro86.389.53.2GPT-5.2 Vision
GPQA Diamond83.182.11.0Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro
SWE-bench Verified73.978.84.9GPT-5.2 Vision
HumanEval92.791.21.5Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro
MATH-50090.192.92.8GPT-5.2 Vision
AIME 202588.485.72.7Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro
LiveCodeBench81.983.41.5GPT-5.2 Vision
IFEval94.193.90.2Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro
TruthfulQA86.185.30.8Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro
HellaSwag92.694.62.0GPT-5.2 Vision
MMMU84.584.40.1Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro
Arena Elo1469.01484.315.3GPT-5.2 Vision

Price analysis

On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro costs about $34.62 per million tokens and GPT-5.2 Vision costs about $35.70. Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro is roughly 3% cheaper than GPT-5.2 Vision. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.

Both models list a 1,000,000-token context window. That is enough for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.

Verdict

Across 12 shared benchmarks, Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro wins 6, GPT-5.2 Vision wins 6, and 0 are tied. On the index average, GPT-5.2 Vision leads Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro by 0.7 points (87.4 versus 86.7).

The price picture favours Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro. 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 GPT-5.2 Vision for quality-sensitive work and Claude Sonnet 4.5 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

  • Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.

Choose GPT-5.2 Vision if

  • You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.

FAQ

Is Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro better than GPT-5.2 Vision?

On the index average, GPT-5.2 Vision leads Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro by 0.7 points (87.4 versus 86.7). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro wins 6 benchmarks, GPT-5.2 Vision wins 6.

Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro or GPT-5.2 Vision?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $34.62 per million tokens, versus $35.70 for GPT-5.2 Vision.

Which has the larger context window?

Both models list a 1,000,000-token context window.

Are these models open weights?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro is proprietary; GPT-5.2 Vision is proprietary.

Which should I choose for production?

If you need a single default, start with GPT-5.2 Vision for quality-sensitive work and Claude Sonnet 4.5 Pro for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.

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