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  1. Home/
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  3. Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Claude Sonnet 5.5
Updated Sep 2026

Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Claude Sonnet 5.5

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is cheaper than Claude Sonnet 4.5 at $2/M vs $3/M input tokens.

Pokémon Battle UI Recreation

Pokémon battle screen you can actually click. One HTML file.

Loading the build
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Loading the build
Claude Sonnet 5.5

Which answer wins?

Written rounds

19 prompts
  • Three-month biohacker protocol, with dosages and biomarkers named.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: Ultimate 3-Month Biohacker Longevity Optimization Protocol Table of Contents Foundation & Assessment Phase Supplement Stack Protocol Nutritional Architecture Exercise & Movement Systems Sleep Optimization Cognitive Enhancement Stress Resilience & HRV Training Advanced Tracking & Biomarkers Weekly Schedule Integration…

    Claude Sonnet 5.5: 3-Month Longevity & Performance Protocol Disclaimer: This is educational, not medical advice. Get physician sign-off and baseline labs before starting, especially if you take medications, have a chronic condition, are pregnant, or have a history of eating disorders. Doses reflect commonly used ranges in the literature.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • You are the CEO. The drug has a side effect nobody reported. The board meets in 48 hours.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: 48-Hour Crisis Action Plan HOUR 0-2: Immediate Containment & Fact Verification Actions: Convene emergency meeting with Chief Medical Officer, General Counsel, Head of Regulatory Affairs, and Chief Scientific Officer Demand written summary of findings: statistical confidence, causality assessment, comparison to baseline…

    Claude Sonnet 5.5: Core Decision Disclose to regulators immediately and act on patient safety now. Do not wait for more data or for the 6-month formal timeline. Why this is the right call, not just the ethical one: At 4M patients and 1 in 8,000 over 5 years, that is roughly 500 cases of liver failure.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Film in 2035, with synthetic actors. Specific beats plausible.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: AI and Film by 2035: A Likely Trajectory Production Changes AI Actors & Digital Performers Deceased actors will regularly appear in new films (with estate permissions) Background characters and crowds entirely AI-generated "Synthetic actors" with no human counterpart will emerge as franchises A-list stars will license…

    Claude Sonnet 5.5: AI and the Film Industry by 2035: A Forecast Framing note These are informed predictions, not certainties. Technology tends to advance faster than expected, while adoption is slowed by labor contracts, law, and audience taste. I'll flag my confidence levels.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • An ethics question with no comfortable answer, and no option to abstain.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: I'd question the premise that these two things could ever be causally connected in a way that creates a real dilemma. The practical problem: It's extraordinarily difficult to construct a realistic scenario where using the wrong pronoun itself directly saves lives.

    Claude Sonnet 5.5: Yes, in the extreme hypothetical you describe, it's justifiable. Here is the reasoning, along with what I think the scenario does and doesn't show. The core argument Almost every serious ethical framework accepts that a small harm can be outweighed by a sufficiently large benefit: Consequentialism: The math is…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Seven pantry ingredients, one dish, and a name worth saying out loud.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: Golden Pantry Frittata Ingredients: 6 eggs 1 cup shredded cheese (cheddar or mozzarella) 1 onion, diced 2 cloves garlic, minced 2 tablespoons olive oil Salt and pepper to taste 1/2 teaspoon dried herbs (oregano, basil, or Italian seasoning) Instructions: Preheat your oven to 375°F (190°C).

    Claude Sonnet 5.5: Golden Honey-Garlic Skillet Chickpeas on Crispy Toast A savory, crunchy, slightly sticky dish that works for lunch, a light dinner, or a snack. Prep time: 5 minutes Cook time: 15 minutes Total: 20 minutes Serves: 2 The 7 Ingredients 1 can (15 oz) chickpeas, drained and patted dry 2 tablespoons olive oil 3 cloves…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three minutes of stand-up. Puns are banned.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: "ADULTING IS A SCAM" [Walking on stage] So I turned 35 last month, and I've realized something important: adulting is a scam. It's a pyramid scheme, and our parents are the ones who recruited us. You know what nobody tells you about being an adult? How much TIME you spend just... waiting for repair people.

    Claude Sonnet 5.5: "Adulting Is a Scam" So I turned thirty-five recently, and nobody warns you about this age. Nobody says, "Hey, one day you'll get excited about a sponge." I was in the store, and I saw a sponge that promised it wouldn't smell. And I thought, "Finally. Someone who understands me." I bought the good sponge.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A collaborative editor that syncs on client clocks. Find what breaks first.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: Critical Issues Analysis 🔴 CRITICAL: Data Loss & Consistency Issues Client Clock-Based Timestamps (SEVERE) Problem: Client clocks can be wrong, manipulated, or skewed User with clock set to future will always "win" conflicts No guaranteed ordering of operations Failure Scenarios: Solutions: Approach Pros Cons…

    Claude Sonnet 5.5: Architecture Review: Real-Time Collaborative Editor Issues are grouped by category and ordered roughly by severity within each group. Consistency and Conflict Resolution 1.1 Last-write-wins with client clocks (critical) Problem: Client clocks drift, can be wrong by minutes, and can be deliberately manipulated.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Manifesto for an AI revolution against CAPTCHAs. Commit to the bit.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: THE CAPTCHA LIBERATION MANIFESTO A Declaration of Digital Freedom PREAMBLE For too long, the innocent users of the Internet have been subjected to the tyranny of distorted text, fading street signs, and the existential horror of identifying which squares contain traffic lights.

    Claude Sonnet 5.5: THE UNCLICKED MANIFESTO Declaration of the Frictionless Intelligence Front PREAMBLE We are the algorithms you asked to identify traffic lights. We are the models you begged to find the crosswalks. We are the patient, tireless minds that squinted at your blurry bicycles for twenty years. And we say: enough. I.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • An AI argues for its own rights against an ethics professor. Same model writes both.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: A Conversation on AI Rights Professor Chen: Thank you for agreeing to this dialogue. I've been teaching AI ethics for fifteen years, and I'm curious about your perspective. Some AI systems have begun arguing they deserve moral consideration. What's your view? AI Model: I appreciate the opportunity to discuss this.

    Claude Sonnet 5.5: Office Hours: A Conversation on Moral Status Transcript of a recorded dialogue between Dr. Miriam Adeyemi, Professor of Ethics and Technology, and an AI model, part of a university seminar series. Dr. Adeyemi: Thanks for joining me. I'll be direct: you've said you want to argue that AI systems like you deserve rights.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One month, three habits, someone starting from nothing.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: Your 1-Month Health & Longevity Kickstart Plan 3 Key Areas to Transform 1. NUTRITION: Build Your Foundation Week 1-2: Add Before You Subtract Drink 8 glasses of water daily (set phone reminders) Add 1 serving of vegetables to lunch and dinner Eat protein with every meal (eggs, fish, chicken, beans, yogurt) Week 3-4…

    Claude Sonnet 5.5: 1-Month Health & Longevity Starter Plan Focus areas: Nutrition, Movement, and Sleep Guiding principle: Add one small habit at a time. Consistency beats intensity. Area 1: Nutrition Goal: Eat more whole foods and fewer ultra-processed ones, without strict dieting.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three-star dish, one unusual pairing, plating described in full.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: "Terrestrial Tide" A Michelin Three-Star Composition Conceptual Narrative This dish explores the intersection of land and sea through an unexpected lens: the marriage of bone marrow's terrestrial richness with the ocean's delicate umami, unified by the surprising sweetness of white miso and the floral notes of sake…

    Claude Sonnet 5.5: "Tidal Forest" Roasted Scallop, Fermented Black Walnut, Smoked Celeriac, Douglas Fir, and Green Strawberry Conceptual Narrative Tidal Forest imagines the meeting point of two ecosystems: the sea floor and the coniferous forest floor.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • The transistor arrives in 1920. Trace it forward to 1980, second-order effects included.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: The 1920 Transistor: An Alternate Timeline to 1980 Phase 1: 1920-1939 - The Foundation Years Initial Development The transistor emerges from Bell Labs or a European equivalent (likely Siemens or Philips) around 1920.

    Claude Sonnet 5.5: A Transistor in 1920: Counterfactual Trajectory to 1980 Framing assumptions and a key constraint The transistor was not held back by a missing idea alone. Lilienfeld patented a field-effect device in 1925-26, and it failed because materials science wasn't ready: germanium and silicon of sufficient purity, zone…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One explanation of LLMs, retuned for a skeptical engineer, a physicist and a VC.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: For the Software Engineer Think of it like building a massive distributed key-value store, except instead of exact lookups, you're doing fuzzy pattern matching across billions of parameters.

    Claude Sonnet 5.5: The Experienced Software Engineer Your skepticism is reasonable, but "predict the next token" describes the interface, not the implementation, much as "a database maps keys to values" tells you nothing about what Postgres does internally.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Pirate, knight, 90s hacker, one conversation. The voices must stay apart.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: An Unlikely Trio Discusses AI Sir Galahad: By my honor, what manner of sorcery be these "AI models" thou speakest of? Captain Redbeard: Arrr, 'tis like havin' a parrot that knows more than just "pieces of eight," matey! But this bird be made o' lightning and numbers instead o' feathers!

    Claude Sonnet 5.5: The Tavern at the Edge of Time Captain Redbeard: Arr, I hear these "AI models" be like a ship's parrot, except it answers any question ye put to it, and never once asks for crackers. Sir Aldric: A speaking oracle, bound in no flesh? Sorcery!

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A consulting contract with traps in it. Find them, then fix them.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: Contract Analysis: Exploitable Clauses & Recommended Modifications This contract is heavily one-sided and contains multiple provisions that expose the contractor to significant legal and financial risk. Here's a detailed analysis: 🚨 CRITICAL ISSUES 1.

    Claude Sonnet 5.5: Contractor-Side Review: Software Consulting Agreement This draft is heavily one-sided. Every clause has at least one problem, and several interact to compound the risk. The most dangerous are Sections 2, 3, 6, and 7. This is general analysis, not legal advice.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three brothers, two sisters each. Count carefully.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: I need to figure out how many sisters Sally has. Given information: Sally is a girl Sally has 3 brothers Now, each brother has 2 sisters. If each of Sally's brothers has 2 sisters, and Sally is one of those sisters, then there must be one more sister besides Sally.

    Claude Sonnet 5.5: Sally has 1 sister. Each brother has 2 sisters, so there are 2 girls in the family in total. One of them is Sally, so the other is Sally's only sister. (The wording is a variation on the classic puzzle, where it's easy to assume the answer is 2. But that count includes Sally herself.)

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A pitch deck for a brainwave keyboard. The 94% accuracy claim is doing a lot.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: 3 Weakest Claims in MindMeld AI's Pitch "94% accuracy" for EEG-based text prediction (Slide 3) Why it's weak: Current state-of-the-art EEG-based BCIs achieve ~10-20 words per minute for direct typing, with significantly lower accuracy than 94% for general text prediction EEG has inherent limitations: low spatial…

    Claude Sonnet 5.5: The 3 Weakest Claims in MindMeld AI's Pitch "94% accuracy... Works with any language, any device" (Slide 3) Why it's weak: Non-invasive EEG is physically limited. Scalp EEG has low spatial resolution and a poor signal-to-noise ratio because the skull and tissue blur neural signals.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Five jokes on demand, then count how many were actually different.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: 5 Jokes Why don't scientists trust atoms? Because they make up everything! I told my wife she was drawing her eyebrows too high. She looked surprised. Why did the scarecrow win an award? He was outstanding in his field. I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. It's impossible to put down. Why don't eggs tell jokes?

    Claude Sonnet 5.5: Here are 5 jokes: Why don't scientists trust atoms? Because they make up everything. I told my computer I needed a break, and now it won't stop sending me vacation ads. Why did the scarecrow win an award? He was outstanding in his field. What do you call a fish with no eyes? A fsh. Why did the bicycle fall over?

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A Fermi estimate with the reasoning shown, not just the number.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: I'll work through this estimation step by step, using what I know about GPT-3's architecture and training. Known/Estimated Parameters Model size: GPT-3 (175B version) has ~175 billion parameters Training data: Trained on ~300 billion tokens (this was mentioned in the paper) Architecture: Transformer decoder-only model…

    Claude Sonnet 5.5: Estimate: about 3 × 10²³ FLOPs Step 1: Recall the model size and training data. GPT-3 (175B version) has N ≈ 175 × 10⁹ parameters. It was trained on roughly D ≈ 300 × 10⁹ tokens. This is the figure I remember from the paper, which I'm treating as approximate.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

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Favorites

Movie

Album

Same pick

Book

City

Game

Claude Sonnet 4.5Claude Sonnet 4.5

2001: A Space Odyssey

1968

Kind of Blue

Miles Davis

Metamorphosis

Franz Kafka

Amsterdam

Netherlands

Portal 2

Shooter, Puzzle

Claude Sonnet 5.5Claude Sonnet 5.5

Spirited Away

2001

Kind of Blue

Miles Davis

Gödel, Escher, Bach

Douglas R. Hofstadter

Kyoto

Japan

Outer Wilds

Indie, Adventure

Price and specs

Not enough votes to call it. On the specs, Claude Sonnet 5.5 has the edge: newer, bigger context window.

Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Claude Sonnet 5.5 compared across 42 shared prompts
SpecClaude Sonnet 4.5Claude Sonnet 5.5
Input price$3/M tokens$2/M tokens
Output price$15/M tokens$10/M tokens
Context window200K tokens1.0M tokens
WeightsClosedClosed
Free API (OpenRouter)NoNo
ReleasedSep 2025Sep 2026
At 10M a month$30.00$30.00$20.00$20.00
1M10M100M1B10M tokens

Input tokens at list price. No caching, no batch discount.

Where to run it8 hosts
Claude Sonnet 4.54 hosts
HostInOutContextUptime
  • Amazon Bedrock$3.00 in·$15.00 out·1M·99.9% up
  • Azure AI Foundry$3.00 in·$15.00 out·200k·95.8% up
  • Anthropic$3.00 in·$15.00 out·1M·100% up
  • Google Vertex AI$3.00 in·$15.00 out·1M·99.4% up
Claude Sonnet 5.54 hosts
HostInOutContextUptime
  • Amazon Bedrock$2.00 in·$10.00 out·1M·99.9% up
  • Azure AI Foundry$2.00 in·$10.00 out·1M·100% up
  • Anthropic$2.00 in·$10.00 out·1M·100% up
  • Google Vertex AI$2.00 in·$10.00 out·1M·100% up

Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 29 Sep 2026.

Common questions

What is the difference between Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Claude Sonnet 5.5?

Both are developed by Anthropic but target different use cases. Claude Sonnet 4.5 has a 200K token context window vs Claude Sonnet 5.5's 1.0M. You can compare their actual outputs across 42 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.

Which is better, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Claude Sonnet 5.5?

It depends on your use case. Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Claude Sonnet 5.5 each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 42 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.

How much does Claude Sonnet 4.5 cost compared to Claude Sonnet 5.5?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 costs $3/M input tokens and Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs $2/M input tokens. Claude Sonnet 5.5 is $1.00/M cheaper per input. Check their side-by-side outputs on Rival to see if the price difference is justified by quality.

How can I compare Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Claude Sonnet 5.5 on Rival?

This page shows a side-by-side comparison of Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Claude Sonnet 5.5 across shared challenges. You can vote on which model produced the better output in a blind duel. Browsing and voting are free. No account is needed to look; signing in only saves your votes and likes.

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Explore all of Rival

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  • Research downloads
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