budget
Grok 3 Mini vs Claude Sonnet 4 5
Side-by-side pricing, context window, features, and per-use-case verdict. Data sourced from LiteLLM, updated regularly.
Specifications
| Feature | Grok 3 Mini | Claude Sonnet 4 5 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | xai | anthropic |
| Model ID | xai/grok-3-mini | claude-sonnet-4-5 |
| Input / 1M tokens | $0.30 (90% cheaper) | $3.00 |
| Output / 1M tokens | $0.50 (97% cheaper) | $15.00 |
| Cached input / 1M | $0.07 | $0.30 |
| Context window | 131kk tokens | 200kk tokens |
| Max output | 131kk tokens | 64kk tokens |
| Vision | ⬜ | ✅ |
| Function calling | ✅ | ✅ |
| Prompt caching | ✅ | ✅ |
| Web search | ✅ | ⬜ |
| JSON schema | ⬜ | ✅ |
Monthly cost comparison
No cache discount applied — pure token costs at three usage scales.
| Scale | Grok 3 Mini | Claude Sonnet 4 5 | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small 1M in / 0.2M out | $0.40 | $6.00 | Grok 3 Mini saves 93% |
| Medium 10M in / 2M out | $4.00 | $60.00 | Grok 3 Mini saves 93% |
| Large 100M in / 20M out | $40.00 | $600 | Grok 3 Mini saves 93% |
Category winners
Cheapest input
Grok 3 Mini
$0.30/M
· 90% less than the other
Cheapest output
Grok 3 Mini
$0.50/M
· 97% less than the other
Larger context
Claude Sonnet 4 5
200kk tokens · 53% larger window
More features
Claude Sonnet 4 5
4 / 5 capabilities
Better for…
High-volume RAG & repeated context
$0.07/M cached input — prompt caching makes repeated context retrieval significantly cheaper
Grok 3 Mini
Short interactions & high-throughput APIs
$0.50/M output — 97% cheaper on output at scale
Grok 3 Mini
Long-document processing & large codebases
200k context window vs 131k — 53% larger context
Claude Sonnet 4 5
Agentic workflows & tool use
Supports 4 of 5 tracked capabilities (vision, function calling, caching, web search, JSON schema)
Claude Sonnet 4 5
Deep-dive on each model
Pricing data sourced from LiteLLM and refreshed regularly. Always verify with each provider's official pricing page before making business decisions.