ModelRefs / Claude Sonnet 4 vs o3 — Benchmarks, Pricing & Coding Compar…

Claude Sonnet 4 vs o3 — Benchmarks, Pricing & Coding Compar…

Claude Sonnet 4 vs o3: side-by-side benchmarks, pricing, context windows, coding ability and deployment. Pick the right model for your stack.

Overview

Claude Sonnet 4: Claude Sonnet 4 is Anthropic's May 2025 hybrid-reasoning model for coding, visual reasoning, tool use, and agent workflows. The dated claude-sonnet-4-20250514 snapshot was retired on Anthropic-operated platforms on June 15, 2026 and is retained as a historical evaluation and migration reference.

o3: o3 is OpenAI's extended-thinking reasoning model, applying deliberate chain-of-thought computation to excel on mathematics, science, and competitive programming tasks. Released in April 2025, it introduced OpenAI's scalable test-time compute approach at production scale.

Context window: Claude Sonnet 4 accepts up to 200,000 tokens, o3 up to 200,000. Confirm the limit for your specific deployment channel before relying on it.

Claude Sonnet 4 vs o3 at a glance

AttributeClaude Sonnet 4o3
ProviderAnthropicOpenAI
Released2025-05-222025-04-01
Context window200,000 tokens200,000 tokens
Input price$3/M tokens$10/M tokens
Output price$15/M tokens$40/M tokens
LicenceProprietaryProprietary
Self-hostableNo, hosted onlyNo, hosted only
Modalitiestext, visiontext, vision

Benchmarks reported for both

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4o3Reported
gpqa75.482.82025-05-22

Scores are as published by their cited sources on the dates shown. Different runs use different harnesses, prompts, and dates, so treat these as directional evidence rather than a head-to-head result.

Where they differ most

  • Cost Efficiency: Claude Sonnet 4 37%, o3 13%. Claude Sonnet 4 leads on this dimension.
  • Reasoning: Claude Sonnet 4 73%, o3 83%. o3 leads on this dimension.

Capability scores are ModelRefs' own derived signals, not vendor claims or benchmark results. Validate against your own workload before relying on them.

Continue your research

Use these connected ModelRefs sections to compare alternatives, inspect implementation paths, and review the evidence and governance boundaries relevant to Claude Sonnet 4 vs o3 — Benchmarks, Pricing & Coding Compar….

Frequently asked questions

Which is better, Claude Sonnet 4 or o3?

Claude Sonnet 4 and o3 target different workloads — see the benchmark and pricing tables for a side-by-side answer.

Is Claude Sonnet 4 cheaper than o3?

Compare $0.00300 vs $0.0100 on this page.