Claude Sonnet 5 vs Gemini 3.1 Pro API Cost
Claude Sonnet 5 at $2/$10 against Gemini 3.1 Pro at $2/$12 per million tokens, including Gemini's higher rates for prompts over 200,000 tokens.
Updated · By Niraj Kumar · 6 sources
https://checkpre.com/ai/claude-sonnet-5-vs-gemini-3-1-pro-api-cost
Models
Each request
System prompt, conversation history, documents and tool definitions are all resent on every call.
The visible answer.
Count tokens from a prompt or JSON payloadShowHide
Plain text, OpenAI Chat or Responses JSON, or Anthropic Messages JSON. A final assistant message or a response body counts as output. Counted in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
Loading the tokenizer…
Counts use OpenAI's o200k tokenizer, so they are exact for GPT-6 and GPT-5 models, plus a few tokens of message framing. Other providers' tokenizers count the same text differently and do not publish a conversion factor; Anthropic says Claude models from 4.7 on produce about 30% more tokens than earlier Claude models. For an exact count on another model, paste one of its API responses: the usage it reports is shown above.
Thinking tokens are billed as output. Leave at 0 for models or settings that do not reason.
Volume
30,000 requests over 30 days.
Discounts
The share of input that repeats exactly at the start of every request, such as a fixed system prompt. The prompt caching calculator prices cache writes and expiry in detail.
- Claude Sonnet 5
- $330.00 a month
- $0.011 a request · 15th cheapest of 24
- Gemini 3.1 Pro
- $360.00 a month
- $0.012 a request · 19th cheapest of 24
- At 10× the volume
- $300.00 a month apart
- Cheapest listed model
- Claude Haiku 5.5
- $16.50 a month
| Measure | Claude Sonnet 5 | Gemini 3.1 Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Input, per 1M tokens | $2 | $2 |
| Cache hit, per 1M tokens | $0.20 | $0.20 |
| Output, per 1M tokens | $10 | $12 |
| Context window | 1M tokens | 1.05M tokens |
| Max output | 128K tokens | 65.5K tokens |
| Batch discount | 50% | 50% |
| Long-context surcharge | None | Above 200K input |
| Input cost a month | $180.00 | $180.00 |
| Output cost a month | $150.00 | $180.00 |
- 1Claude Haiku 5.5Anthropic$16.50
- 2GPT-6 LunaOpenAI$16.50
- 3Qwen3.8 FlashAlibaba$20.55
- 4GPT-5.6 LunaOpenAI$36.00
- 5DeepSeek V4.1 FlashDeepSeek$45.00
- 6Qwen3.7 PlusAlibaba$60.00
- 7Gemini 3.5 Flash-LiteGoogle$64.50
- 8Gemini 3.8 FlashGoogle$123.75
- 9Grok 4.3xAI$150.00
- 10Claude Haiku 4.5Anthropic$165.00
- 11DeepSeek V4 ProDeepSeek$178.20
- 12Grok 4.7xAI$270.00
- 13Qwen3.8 MaxAlibaba$270.00
- 14Claude Sonnet 5.5Anthropic$330.00
- 15Claude Sonnet 5Anthropic$330.00
- 16GPT-6.1 SolOpenAI$330.00
- 17GPT-6 SolOpenAI$330.00
- 18GPT-5.6 TerraOpenAI$360.00
- 19Gemini 3.1 ProGoogle$360.00
- 20Claude Opus 5.5Anthropic$660.00
- 21GPT-5.6 SolOpenAI$660.00
- 22Claude Opus 5Anthropic$825.00
- 23Claude Fable 5.1Anthropic$1,650
- 24GPT-6 AstraOpenAI$1,650
How the Claude Sonnet 5 vs Gemini 3.1 Pro API Cost works
cost = (fresh input × input rate + cached input × cache rate + (output + reasoning) × output rate) ÷ 1,000,000This page uses the same method as the LLM API Cost Calculator, which explains each term and assumption in full.
Worked example
A chat feature sending 3,000 input tokens and getting 500 back, 1,000 times a day, priced on both models with no caching.
- 1Claude Sonnet 5: 3,000 × $2 + 500 × $10, ÷ 1,000,000 = $0.011 a request, $330.00 a month
- 2Gemini 3.1 Pro: 3,000 × $2 + 500 × $12, ÷ 1,000,000 = $0.012 a request, $360.00 a month
- 3Difference: $30.00 a month
Claude Sonnet 5 is $30.00 a month cheaper for this workload, 8% less.
Frequently asked questions
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5 or Gemini 3.1 Pro?
At standard list rates, Claude Sonnet 5 is 8% cheaper than Gemini 3.1 Pro on a typical chat request (3,000 tokens in, 500 out); Claude Sonnet 5 is 16% cheaper than Gemini 3.1 Pro on output-heavy generation (500 in, 2,000 out); and Claude Sonnet 5 is 7% cheaper than Gemini 3.1 Pro on a large cached prompt (20,000 in, 90% cached, 500 out). Claude Sonnet 5 charges $2 input and $10 output per million tokens; Gemini 3.1 Pro charges $2 and $12.
How do long prompts change the Sonnet 5 vs Gemini 3.1 Pro comparison?
Below 200,000 tokens the two share a $2 input rate and Sonnet 5's output is cheaper, $10 to $12. Above 200,000, Gemini 3.1 Pro bills the request at $4 input and $18 output, while Sonnet 5 keeps its standard rate up to 1M tokens, so long-document work widens the gap. Caching differs too: Gemini's explicit cache charges $4.50 per million tokens an hour to keep, Anthropic's charges once to write.
Sources
- Anthropic, Claude API pricing · checked
- OpenAI, API pricing · checked
- Google, Gemini API pricing · checked
- DeepSeek, Models and pricing · checked
- xAI, Models and pricing · checked
- Alibaba Cloud Model Studio, Model pricing · checked
Related calculators
- Claude Sonnet 5 API Cost CalculatorPrice Claude Sonnet 5 at $2 in and $10 out per million tokens for your own workload, with caching, batch and a ranking against GPT and Gemini.
- Gemini 3.1 Pro API Cost CalculatorPrice Gemini 3.1 Pro at $2 in and $12 out per million tokens, with its higher rates above 200,000 tokens and the hourly cost of its context cache.
- LLM API Cost CalculatorPrice a real workload across Claude, GPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, Grok and Qwen side by side, with prompt caching, batch discounts and exact token counts.
- Prompt Caching ROI CalculatorSee whether caching your system prompt or documents pays off: cache writes, reads, expiry and break-even for Claude, GPT and Gemini.
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