Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision vs Gemini 2.5 Pro Max: which model should you choose?
We compared Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision and Gemini 2.5 Pro Max on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Gemini 2.5 Pro Max has the stronger average benchmark score; Gemini 2.5 Pro Max is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision is a frontier model from Anthropic. It offers a 128,000-token context window, costs $16.99 per million input tokens and $82.33 per million output tokens, and averages 83.8 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $16.99 / 1M
- Output
- $82.33 / 1M
- Context
- 128,000
- Avg score
- 83.8
- Open weights
- No
Gemini 2.5 Pro Max
Gemini 2.5 Pro Max is a frontier model from Google DeepMind. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $16.94 per million input tokens and $64.80 per million output tokens, and averages 84.8 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $16.94 / 1M
- Output
- $64.80 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 84.8
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $16.99 | $16.94 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $82.33 | $64.80 | B |
| Context window | 128,000 | 200,000 | B |
| Max output | 16,384 | 65,536 | B |
| Average score | 83.8 | 84.8 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1447.6 | 1450.2 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision wins 1, Gemini 2.5 Pro Max wins 9, and 2 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 84.8 | 86.7 | 1.9 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max |
| GPQA Diamond | 79.6 | 79.8 | 0.2 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max |
| SWE-bench Verified | 73.7 | 75.5 | 1.8 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max |
| HumanEval | 87.0 | 87.0 | 0.0 | Tie |
| MATH-500 | 90.6 | 91.6 | 1.0 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max |
| AIME 2025 | 86.4 | 82.6 | 3.8 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision |
| LiveCodeBench | 76.5 | 79.9 | 3.4 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max |
| IFEval | 89.9 | 91.3 | 1.4 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max |
| TruthfulQA | 83.7 | 85.5 | 1.8 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max |
| HellaSwag | 89.4 | 92.9 | 3.5 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max |
| MMMU | 79.7 | 79.7 | 0.0 | Tie |
| Arena Elo | 1447.6 | 1450.2 | 2.6 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision costs about $33.33 per million tokens and Gemini 2.5 Pro Max costs about $28.91. Gemini 2.5 Pro Max is roughly 13% cheaper than Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Gemini 2.5 Pro Max has the larger context window at 200,000 tokens, compared with 128,000 for Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision wins 1, Gemini 2.5 Pro Max wins 9, and 2 are tied. On the index average, Gemini 2.5 Pro Max leads Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision by 1.0 points (84.8 versus 83.8).
The price picture favours Gemini 2.5 Pro Max. The context picture favours Gemini 2.5 Pro Max. 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 Gemini 2.5 Pro Max for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.
Choose Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision if
- You prefer Anthropic's tooling or already use it.
Choose Gemini 2.5 Pro Max if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 200,000-token context window.
- You need the larger 65,536-token output limit.
FAQ
Is Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision better than Gemini 2.5 Pro Max?
On the index average, Gemini 2.5 Pro Max leads Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision by 1.0 points (84.8 versus 83.8). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision wins 1 benchmarks, Gemini 2.5 Pro Max wins 9.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision or Gemini 2.5 Pro Max?
Gemini 2.5 Pro Max is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $28.91 per million tokens, versus $33.33 for Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision.
Which has the larger context window?
Gemini 2.5 Pro Max has the larger context window at 200,000 tokens. Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision has 128,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision is proprietary; Gemini 2.5 Pro Max is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Gemini 2.5 Pro Max for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.