Comparison page
Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview
Compare a strong Anthropic production model against Google’s current Gemini Pro preview.
Side-by-side pricing
The table uses the same example request on both models so you can compare balanced reasoning and multimodal work without changing the prompt shape.
Input 1,000 / Output 250
| Model | Input / 1M | Cached input / 1M | Output / 1M | Example request | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Claude Sonnet 4.6 Anthropic's current balanced production model for everyday writing, analysis, and automation. | $3.00 | No public rate | $15.0 | $0.0067 | Anthropic pricing |
Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview Google's latest Gemini Pro preview for complex multimodal reasoning workloads. | $2.00 | No public rate | $12.0 | $0.0050 | Google Gemini pricing |
When to choose each model
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Choose Claude Sonnet 4.6 when you want the economics or capability profile of Anthropic and you can justify the published rate.
Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview
Choose Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview when you need the second option in this comparison and want to test whether it lowers spend without hurting the workflow.
Use cases
- • Choosing between Anthropic writing quality and Google multimodal reach.
- • Planning enterprise assistants with richer documents.
- • Comparing vendor economics for production deployments.
If the prompt is noisy or repetitive, run it through the prompt optimizer first.
If the brief is too loose, use the context engineer to tighten the instructions before you compare models again.
For the broader pricing strategy, read the LLM cost optimization pillar and the cost-per-million-tokens cheat sheet.
FAQ
Which model is cheaper?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 is cheaper on the current public input rate than Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview.
When might Gemini win?
When the workflow leans on the Google ecosystem or you need a specific Gemini preview capability.
Can I pair this with the pillar guide?
Yes. Use it alongside the LLM cost optimization pillar to understand the bigger spend pattern.