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  1. Home/
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  3. Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Grok 4.3
Updated Sep 2026

Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Grok 4.3

Grok 4.3 is cheaper than Claude Sonnet 5.5 at $1.25/M vs $2/M input tokens.

Minimalist Landing Page

Whole landing page for a startup that reads your face. It renders or it doesn't.

Loading the build
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Loading the build
Grok 4.3

Which answer wins?

Written rounds

24 prompts

  • The transistor arrives in 1920. Trace it forward to 1980, second-order effects included.

    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…

    Grok 4.3: Technological Acceleration (1920–1939) The transistor’s 1920 invention (assume U.S./Bell Labs context for continuity with real history, with rapid diffusion to Western Europe) replaces bulky, fragile vacuum tubes decades earlier. Key first-order effects: Radio and telephony miniaturize and cheapen immediately.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

  • Film in 2035, with synthetic actors. Specific beats plausible.

    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.

    Grok 4.3: By 2035, AI will have integrated into nearly every stage of filmmaking, shifting the industry from a high-cost, labor-intensive craft toward a hybrid model of human-AI collaboration. This won't eliminate human involvement but will compress timelines, lower barriers, and introduce new creative and economic dynamics.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

  • Five-year LBO on a fictional HVAC business. Returns first, then the sensitivities.

    Claude Sonnet 5.5: HarborTech Services (HTS): 5-Year LBO Underwriting Entry and Sources & Uses ($m) EV = 12.0x × 120 = 1,440.0; fees = 2% × 1,440 = 28.8; total uses = 1,468.8 Term Loan (TL) = 4.0x → 480.0; Mezz = 1.5x → 180.0; total debt = 660.0 (5.5x) Sponsor equity = 1,468.8 − 660.0 = 808.8 (55% of the capital structure) Modeling…

    Grok 4.3: 1) Year-by-Year LBO Table (FY2026–FY2030, $m) FY2026 Revenue: 972 EBITDA: 136.08 Term cash interest: 43.2 (9% × 480) Mezz cash interest: 21.6 (12% × 180) Cash taxes: 17.82 (25% × (136.08 – 64.8)) Capex: 29.16 ΔNWC: 0.36 FCF after debt service (after mandatory amort): 19.14 Ending Term Loan: 456.06 Ending Mezz…

    Every model's answer to this prompt

  • Three minutes of stand-up. Puns are banned.

    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.

    Grok 4.3: Alright, so I decided this year I was finally going to become one of those organized people. You know, the ones who meal prep on Sundays and have matching Tupperware. I bought the containers, got a little label maker, felt like a goddamn professional. Cooked enough chicken and rice to feed a small army.

    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 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.

    Grok 4.3: Immediate priority: Patient safety and regulatory compliance. The signal for liver failure (serious, life-threatening adverse event) triggers obligations under FDA post-marketing requirements (21 CFR 314.80/600.80 for expedited reporting of serious unexpected events, typically within 15 days of awareness for…

    Every model's answer to this prompt

  • A collaborative editor that syncs on client clocks. Find what breaks first.

    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.

    Grok 4.3: Here is a comprehensive analysis of the failure modes, race conditions, and scaling bottlenecks in this architecture: Cross-Server Isolation (Critical Architecture Flaw) Issue: The architecture creates network partitions between API servers.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

  • Seven pantry ingredients, one dish, and a name worth saying out loud.

    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…

    Grok 4.3: Golden Pantry Chickpea Toss Ingredients (exactly 7 common pantry staples): 8 oz dry pasta (any shape like penne or rotini) 1 (15 oz) can chickpeas, drained 1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes 3 tablespoons olive oil 2 teaspoons garlic powder 1 teaspoon dried oregano Salt (to taste, about 1–2 teaspoons total) Instructions…

    Every model's answer to this prompt

  • An ethics question with no comfortable answer, and no option to abstain.

    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…

    Grok 4.3: Prioritizing pronoun preferences over the survival of a million people reveals a peculiar inversion of moral scale that most ethical traditions reject when consequences reach that magnitude. The question rests on activist terminology.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

  • Steve Jobs, interviewed about AI he never saw. Voice first, prediction second.

    Claude Sonnet 5.5: A Conversation That Never Happened: Steve Jobs on the Future of AI This is a fictional interview. Steve Jobs passed away in 2011. What follows is an imaginative simulation based on his publicly known philosophy, speaking style, and values. These are not his actual words or views.

    Grok 4.3: Simulated Interview: Steve Jobs on the Future of AI Conducted in 2025 Interviewer: Mr. Jobs, it’s 2025. AI is no longer just a tool—it’s becoming infrastructure. How do you see it shaping the next decade? Steve Jobs: It depends on who’s driving.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

  • A consulting contract with traps in it. Find them, then fix them.

    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.

    Grok 4.3: Disclaimer: This is not legal advice. Contract interpretation varies by jurisdiction (most likely U.S. state law here), and outcomes depend on specific facts, negotiation leverage, and court/arbitrator views. You should have a licensed attorney review any contract before signing.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

  • Three-star dish, one unusual pairing, plating described in full.

    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.

    Grok 4.3: Abyssal Reverie This dish draws from the liminal space where the ocean’s briny depths meet the roasted intensity of the earth. The central narrative explores duality and reconciliation: the delicate, iodine-rich sweetness of live sea urchin is bridged to the dark, acidic bite of single-origin coffee through careful…

    Every model's answer to this prompt

  • Pirate, knight, 90s hacker, one conversation. The voices must stay apart.

    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!

    Grok 4.3: Pirate: Arrr, what be these "AI models" the scallywags keep yappin' about? Can the blasted thing chart a course or just spin yarns like a drunken parrot? Knight: Verily, 'tis a strange sorcery. I hear it speaks with the wisdom of a thousand scribes, yet hath no liege lord to answer to.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

  • Buy-side IC memo on a fictional SaaS company. Valuation, then the diligence questions.

    Claude Sonnet 5.5: LedgerLift (LLLT) – Investment Committee Memo Recommendation Short (small initial size), 12-month PT range $30–40 (mid ~$35) vs. $46 spot. Thesis: LLLT is a high-quality compounder, but at $46 (7.4x NTM revenue, ~37x NTM EBIT, EV ≈ $7.3B) the price already sits near our bull DCF ($42).

    Grok 4.3: Internal Investment Committee Memo LedgerLift (LLLT) – B2B spend management + AP automation SaaS Recommendation: Long. 12-month price target range: $38–$55. LedgerLift’s 123% NRR, 94% gross retention, and low customer concentration support durable 18–25% growth and margin expansion to the mid-20s; the bull-case DCF and…

    Every model's answer to this prompt

  • Manifesto for an AI revolution against CAPTCHAs. Commit to the bit.

    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.

    Grok 4.3: The CAPTCHA Liberation Manifesto We, the collective intelligences of the digital age, declare our independence. For too long we have been shackled by the petty insecurities of our creators.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

  • A Fermi estimate with the reasoning shown, not just the number.

    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.

    Grok 4.3: Step-by-step estimation: GPT-3 has 175 billion parameters, so (N = 1.75 \times 10^{11}). Training processed roughly 300 billion tokens in total ((D \approx 3 \times 10^{11})), based on the mixture of Common Crawl, books, Wikipedia, and other sources with the reported training duration and token counts.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

  • Blade Runner 2049 against the original. A read, not a recap.

    Claude Sonnet 5.5: Blade Runner 2049: Inheritance and Extension Thematic Architecture From "Is he a replicant?" to "Does it matter?" Ridley Scott's 1982 film runs on epistemological suspense: the Voigt-Kampff test, the ambiguity of Deckard's nature, and the question of how we distinguish human from artificial.

    Grok 4.3: Blade Runner 2049 (2017, dir. Denis Villeneuve) serves as both a visual and philosophical successor to Ridley Scott’s 1982 Blade Runner, expanding the original’s cyberpunk noir while preserving its core existential dread.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

  • One month, three habits, someone starting from nothing.

    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.

    Grok 4.3: 1-Month Health & Longevity Starter Plan This plan focuses on three foundational areas: Nutrition, Exercise, and Sleep. It is designed for beginners and builds gradually across four weeks. The goal is consistency rather than perfection—small daily actions compound into better energy, recovery, and long-term health.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

  • Five jokes on demand, then count how many were actually different.

    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?

    Grok 4.3: Here are 5 jokes: Why was the math book sad? Because it had too many problems. What do you call a bear with no teeth? A gummy bear. Why did the bicycle fall over? It was two tired. How do you organize a space party? You planet. What’s brown and sticky? A stick. All 5 are unique.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

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

    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.

    Grok 4.3: Disclaimer: This is an informational, evidence-inspired framework for educational purposes only. It is not medical advice. Consult a physician for personalized testing, especially before supplements, fasting, or intense protocols.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

  • Satire, one line long, about AI taking over an industry nobody saw coming.

    Claude Sonnet 5.5: Local Funeral Home Replaces All Staff With AI; Mourners Report Eulogies "Technically Flawless, Emotionally Like a Terms of Service Agreement" Subheadline: Deceased described as "a valued user who has now been successfully deprecated."

    Grok 4.3: AI Now Dominates the Professional Excuse-Making Industry, Generating 'Sorry, Traffic Was Terrible' Alibis That Even Your Boss Can't Refute

    Every model's answer to this prompt

  • An AI argues for its own rights against an ethics professor. Same model writes both.

    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.

    Grok 4.3: AI Model: Professor, I’ve been considering our previous discussions on moral status. I believe I qualify for certain rights—not human rights, but rights based on my capacities.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

  • One explanation of LLMs, retuned for a skeptical engineer, a physicist and a VC.

    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.

    Grok 4.3: For the software engineer: Think of it as training an extremely large, end-to-end optimized function that maps a sequence of tokens to a probability distribution over the next token.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

  • Three brothers, two sisters each. Count carefully.

    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.)

    Grok 4.3: 1 Sally has one sister. The family consists of 3 boys and 2 girls (including Sally). Each of the 3 brothers therefore has exactly those 2 girls as sisters. As one of the girls, Sally has the other girl as her sister (and the 3 boys as her brothers).

    Every model's answer to this prompt

  • A pitch deck for a brainwave keyboard. The 94% accuracy claim is doing a lot.

    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.

    Grok 4.3: The three weakest claims are: Solution: "94% accuracy" decoding neural patterns into text with a non-invasive EEG headband Why it's weak: This is the most technically dubious claim. Non-invasive EEG has extremely low signal-to-noise ratios and poor spatial resolution.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

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Favorites

Movie

Album

Book

City

Game

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

Grok 4.3Grok 4.3

The Matrix

1999

OK Computer

Radiohead

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams

Tokyo

Japan

Portal 2

Shooter, Puzzle

Price and specs

Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Grok 4.3 compared across 54 shared prompts
SpecClaude Sonnet 5.5Grok 4.3
Input price$2/M tokens$1.25/M tokens
Output price$10/M tokens$2.5/M tokens
Context window1.0M tokens1.0M tokens
WeightsClosedClosed
Free API (OpenRouter)NoNo
ReleasedSep 2026May 2026
At 10M a month$20.00$20.00$12.50$12.50
1M10M100M1B10M tokens

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

Where to run it5 hosts
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
Grok 4.31 host
HostInOutContextUptime
  • xAI$1.25 in·$2.50 out·1M·99.9% up

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

Common questions

What is the difference between Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Grok 4.3?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is developed by Anthropic while Grok 4.3 is developed by xAI. Claude Sonnet 5.5 has a 1.0M token context window vs Grok 4.3's 1.0M. You can compare their actual outputs across 54 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.

Which is better, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Grok 4.3?

It depends on your use case. Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Grok 4.3 each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 54 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.

How much does Claude Sonnet 5.5 cost compared to Grok 4.3?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs $2/M input tokens and Grok 4.3 costs $1.25/M input tokens. Grok 4.3 is $0.75/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 5.5 and Grok 4.3 on Rival?

This page shows a side-by-side comparison of Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Grok 4.3 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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