💰 Unit Cost Winner Gemini 3.8 Flash $0.25/1M in · $1.50/1M out
⚡ Latency & Speed Winner Gemini 3.8 Flash 105ms TTFT · 210 tok/s
💻 Coding (SWE) Winner Claude 4.5 Sonnet 75.8% SWE-bench · 96% HumanEval
🧠 STEM Reasoning Winner Claude 4.5 Sonnet 84.2% GPQA · 97.5% MATH-500

Which model is better: Claude 4.5 Sonnet or Gemini 3.8 Flash?

Gemini 3.8 Flash is 91.7% cheaper for input tokens ($0.25 vs. $3.00 per 1M tokens) and $1.50 vs. $15.00 for output tokens (12.0x cost advantage). In terms of operational performance, Gemini 3.8 Flash delivers lower response latency at 105ms TTFT (275ms faster than Claude 4.5 Sonnet) with 210 vs. 84 tok/s throughput. Claude 4.5 Sonnet leads coding evaluations at 75.8% SWE-bench Verified vs. 68.5% for Gemini 3.8 Flash and 84.2% vs. 79.2% on GPQA Diamond.
Verified daily via automated API latency tests and official documentation.

Verified Performance & Unit Economics Delta (12 Dimensions)

Daily synchronized metrics across token pricing, prompt cache economics, latency, throughput, and 5 capability benchmarks.

Metric / Dimension Claude 4.5 Sonnet Gemini 3.8 Flash Net Delta / Advantage
Input Cost / 1M Tokens $3.00 $0.25 Gemini 3.8 Flash is 12.0x cheaper
Output Cost / 1M Tokens $15.00 $1.50 Gemini 3.8 Flash (90.0% lower)
Prompt Cache Read / 1M $0.300 $0.025 Gemini 3.8 Flash is 12.0x cheaper
Prompt Cache Write / 1M $3.75 $0.25 Gemini 3.8 Flash is 15.0x cheaper
Context Window (Max Output) 205k (64k out) 1,049k (66k out) Gemini 3.8 Flash (5.1x larger context)
Avg TTFT Response Latency 380ms 105ms Gemini 3.8 Flash (275ms faster)
Generation Speed (Throughput) 84 tok/s 210 tok/s Gemini 3.8 Flash (+126 tok/s faster)
SWE-bench Verified (Coding) 75.8% 68.5% Claude 4.5 Sonnet (+7.3% lead)
GPQA Diamond (PhD STEM) 84.2% 79.2% Claude 4.5 Sonnet (+5.0% lead)
MMLU-Pro (Multi-Discipline) 90.4% 87.4% Claude 4.5 Sonnet (+3.0% lead)
MATH-500 (Quantitative Logic) 97.5% 95.1% Claude 4.5 Sonnet (+2.4% lead)
Inference Value Score (IVR) 56.5 / 100 74 / 100 Gemini 3.8 Flash (+17.5 pts)

Interactive Monthly Token Economics & ROI Forecaster

Model production workloads across prompt, completion, and cached context tokens, or switch models on the fly.

25.0M Tokens
500K 50M 250M 500M+
5.0M Tokens
100K 25M 75M 150M+
50% Cached
0% (Uncached) 25% 50% (Typical Agent) 95% Max

Estimated Monthly Spend

Claude 4.5 Sonnet $116.25

$3.00/1M in · $15.00/1M out

Prompt Cache: $0.300/1M read · $3.75/1M write

Gemini 3.8 Flash $10.94

$0.25/1M in · $1.50/1M out

Prompt Cache: $0.025/1M read · $0.25/1M write

Projected Monthly Cost Reduction
$105.31 / mo
(90.6% lower cost with Gemini 3.8 Flash)
Open Full Matchup Analysis →
A

When to Choose Claude 4.5 Sonnet

Choose Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Anthropic) for end-to-end autonomous coding agents, complex multi-file debugging, browser/GUI automation, and high-precision technical writing — offering a 204k context window, 380ms TTFT, and $3.00/1M input pricing ($0.300/1M cached reads).

B

When to Choose Gemini 3.8 Flash

Choose Gemini 3.8 Flash (Google) for high-throughput agentic workflows, real-time multimodal RAG, live search grounding, and production code generation at flash unit economics — offering a 1,048k context window, 105ms TTFT, and $0.25/1M input pricing ($0.025/1M cached reads).

Related Questions & Decision Factors

Which is cheaper: Claude 4.5 Sonnet or Gemini 3.8 Flash?

Gemini 3.8 Flash is cheaper at $0.25/1M input tokens ($1.50/1M output) compared to $3.00/1M input ($15.00/1M output) for Claude 4.5 Sonnet.

Which model has lower TTFT latency and higher tok/s throughput: Claude 4.5 Sonnet or Gemini 3.8 Flash?

Gemini 3.8 Flash delivers faster first-token latency at 105ms TTFT (210 tok/s throughput) compared to 380ms TTFT (84 tok/s) for Claude 4.5 Sonnet.

How do Claude 4.5 Sonnet and Gemini 3.8 Flash compare on SWE-bench coding and GPQA Diamond reasoning?

On SWE-bench Verified software engineering, Claude 4.5 Sonnet scores 75.8% versus 68.5% for Gemini 3.8 Flash. On GPQA Diamond graduate-level STEM reasoning, Claude 4.5 Sonnet scores 84.2% versus 79.2% for Gemini 3.8 Flash (and 97.5% vs 95.1% on MATH-500).

When should you choose Claude 4.5 Sonnet?

Choose Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Anthropic) for end-to-end autonomous coding agents, complex multi-file debugging, browser/GUI automation, and high-precision technical writing — offering a 204k context window, 380ms TTFT, and $3.00/1M input pricing ($0.300/1M cached reads).

When should you choose Gemini 3.8 Flash?

Choose Gemini 3.8 Flash (Google) for high-throughput agentic workflows, real-time multimodal RAG, live search grounding, and production code generation at flash unit economics — offering a 1,048k context window, 105ms TTFT, and $0.25/1M input pricing ($0.025/1M cached reads).

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