Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs o3 Max: which model should you choose?
We compared Claude Sonnet 4.5 and o3 Max on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Claude Sonnet 4.5 has the stronger average benchmark score; Claude Sonnet 4.5 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5 is a frontier model from Anthropic. It offers a 400,000-token context window, costs $17.84 per million input tokens and $70.50 per million output tokens, and averages 86.0 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $17.84 / 1M
- Output
- $70.50 / 1M
- Context
- 400,000
- Avg score
- 86.0
- Open weights
- No
o3 Max
o3 Max is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 2,000,000-token context window, costs $17.82 per million input tokens and $90.55 per million output tokens, and averages 84.8 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $17.82 / 1M
- Output
- $90.55 / 1M
- Context
- 2,000,000
- Avg score
- 84.8
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | o3 Max | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $17.84 | $17.82 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $70.50 | $90.55 | A |
| Context window | 400,000 | 2,000,000 | B |
| Max output | 128,000 | 128,000 | Tie |
| Average score | 86.0 | 84.8 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1478.2 | 1465.2 | A |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Claude Sonnet 4.5 wins 7, o3 Max wins 4, and 1 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | o3 Max | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 88.0 | 84.9 | 3.1 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| GPQA Diamond | 82.6 | 82.7 | 0.1 | o3 Max |
| SWE-bench Verified | 74.2 | 71.8 | 2.4 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| HumanEval | 92.7 | 89.8 | 2.9 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| MATH-500 | 87.0 | 87.0 | 0.0 | Tie |
| AIME 2025 | 86.3 | 86.2 | 0.1 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LiveCodeBench | 82.5 | 76.4 | 6.1 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| IFEval | 91.1 | 92.5 | 1.4 | o3 Max |
| TruthfulQA | 87.2 | 87.3 | 0.1 | o3 Max |
| HellaSwag | 93.0 | 93.4 | 0.4 | o3 Max |
| MMMU | 80.9 | 80.8 | 0.1 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Arena Elo | 1478.2 | 1465.2 | 13.0 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Claude Sonnet 4.5 costs about $31.00 per million tokens and o3 Max costs about $36.00. Claude Sonnet 4.5 is roughly 14% cheaper than o3 Max. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
o3 Max has the larger context window at 2,000,000 tokens, compared with 400,000 for Claude Sonnet 4.5. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Claude Sonnet 4.5 wins 7, o3 Max wins 4, and 1 are tied. On the index average, Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads o3 Max by 1.2 points (86.0 versus 84.8).
The price picture favours Claude Sonnet 4.5. The context picture favours o3 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 Claude Sonnet 4.5 for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.
Choose Claude Sonnet 4.5 if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
Choose o3 Max if
- You need the larger 2,000,000-token context window.
FAQ
Is Claude Sonnet 4.5 better than o3 Max?
On the index average, Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads o3 Max by 1.2 points (86.0 versus 84.8). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Claude Sonnet 4.5 wins 7 benchmarks, o3 Max wins 4.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or o3 Max?
Claude Sonnet 4.5 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $31.00 per million tokens, versus $36.00 for o3 Max.
Which has the larger context window?
o3 Max has the larger context window at 2,000,000 tokens. Claude Sonnet 4.5 has 400,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Claude Sonnet 4.5 is proprietary; o3 Max is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Claude Sonnet 4.5 for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.