Polarison

Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Gemini 2.5 Pro: pricing and benchmarks

Gemini 2.5 Pro is 38% cheaper on input tokens ($1.25 vs $2.00 per 1M). Both charge $10.00 per 1M output tokens. On our document Q&A workload (50,000 questions a month), Gemini 2.5 Pro costs $800.00 a month versus $1,100 for Claude Sonnet 5.5, 27% less. Epoch AI has not published a capability index score for Claude Sonnet 5.5 yet.

Prices verified September 28, 2026.

Which should you choose?

Overall capability
Too close to call

Epoch AI has not published a capability index score for Claude Sonnet 5.5 yet.

Price
Gemini 2.5 Pro

Gemini 2.5 Pro costs $3.438 per 1M tokens (3:1 input-to-output mix) vs $4.00 for Claude Sonnet 5.5, 14% less.

Pricing and specs

Claude Sonnet 5.5Gemini 2.5 Pro
ProviderAnthropicGoogle
API model IDclaude-sonnet-5-5gemini-2.5-pro
Input / 1M tokens$2.00$1.25
Cached input / 1M tokens$0.20$0.125
Output / 1M tokens$10.00$10.00
Long-context rates—$2.50 in / $15.00 out above 200K prompt tokens
Context window1M tokens1.05M tokens
Max output128K tokens66K tokens
Batch discount50% off—

Benchmarks

Claude Sonnet 5.5Gemini 2.5 Pro
Epoch Capabilities Index—145.3
GPQA Diamond· Science reasoning—80.4%
FrontierMath (Tiers 1–3)· Advanced math—24.6%
SimpleQA Verified· Factual accuracy——
ARC-AGI-2· Abstract reasoning—4.9%
DeepSWE· Coding——
APEX-Agents· Agentic work—6.6%

Source: Epoch AI, best recorded result per model (CC BY 4.0). A dash means no published score. See all benchmarks

Monthly cost for real workloads

WorkloadClaude Sonnet 5.5Gemini 2.5 ProDifference
Support chatbot
100,000 replies a month, ~1,500 input tokens (system prompt + history) and ~400 output tokens each.
$700.00$587.50Gemini 2.5 Pro 16% cheaper
Document Q&A (RAG)
50,000 questions a month with ~8,000 tokens of retrieved context and ~600 output tokens each.
$1,100$800.00Gemini 2.5 Pro 27% cheaper
Coding agent
10,000 agent steps a month, ~40,000 input tokens each (70% read from the prompt cache) and ~2,000 output tokens.
$496.00$385.00Gemini 2.5 Pro 22% cheaper

Estimates use standard list prices and ignore cache-write surcharges. Different tokenizers can count the same text differently, so test with your own prompts.

Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Gemini 2.5 Pro cost calculator

Standard-tier list prices. Long-context rates apply automatically where the provider publishes a threshold. Excludes cache-write surcharges, taxes, batch and volume discounts.

Claude Sonnet 5.5 pricing notes

Anthropic’s fast mid-tier model, successor to Claude Sonnet 5 at the same price.

  • Cache writes cost $2.50 (5-minute cache) or $4 (1-hour cache) per 1M tokens.
  • US-only inference (inference_geo: "us") costs 1.1x.
Anthropic official pricing ↗

Gemini 2.5 Pro pricing notes

Google’s previous-generation Pro model.

  • Prompts over 200K tokens are billed at $2.50 input / $15 output per 1M tokens.
  • Output price includes thinking tokens.
Google official pricing ↗

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 cheaper than Gemini 2.5 Pro?
Gemini 2.5 Pro is 38% cheaper on input tokens ($1.25 vs $2.00 per 1M). Both charge $10.00 per 1M output tokens. On our document Q&A workload (50,000 questions a month), Gemini 2.5 Pro costs $800.00 a month versus $1,100 for Claude Sonnet 5.5, 27% less.
Which is more capable, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Gemini 2.5 Pro?
Epoch AI has not published a capability index score for Claude Sonnet 5.5 yet.
How much does Claude Sonnet 5.5 cost per 1M tokens?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs $2.00 per 1M input tokens and $10.00 per 1M output tokens, and $0.20 per 1M cached input tokens on Anthropic’s standard tier.
How much does Gemini 2.5 Pro cost per 1M tokens?
Gemini 2.5 Pro costs $1.25 per 1M input tokens and $10.00 per 1M output tokens, and $0.125 per 1M cached input tokens on Google’s standard tier.
Which has the larger context window, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Gemini 2.5 Pro?
Gemini 2.5 Pro has the larger context window: 1.05M tokens versus 1M for Claude Sonnet 5.5.

Related comparisons