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Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs o1

Head-to-head comparison across 1benchmark categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.

Claude Sonnet 4.5

66

VS

o1

58

1 categoriesvs0 categories

Pick Claude Sonnet 4.5 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. o1 only becomes the better choice if you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.

Category Radar

Head-to-Head by Category

Category Breakdown

Knowledge

Claude Sonnet 4.5
83.4vs75.7

+7.7 difference

Operational Comparison

Claude Sonnet 4.5

o1

Price (per 1M tokens)

$3 / $15

$15 / $60

Speed

N/A

98 t/s

Latency (TTFT)

N/A

32.29s

Context Window

200K

200K

Quick Verdict

Pick Claude Sonnet 4.5 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. o1 only becomes the better choice if you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.

Claude Sonnet 4.5 is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 66 to 58. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Claude Sonnet 4.5's sharpest advantage is in knowledge, where it averages 83.4 against 75.7. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is GPQA, 83.4% to 75.7%.

o1 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $15.00 input / $60.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $3.00 input / $15.00 output per 1M tokens for Claude Sonnet 4.5. That is roughly 4.0x on output cost alone. o1 is the reasoning model in the pair, while Claude Sonnet 4.5 is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use.

Benchmark Deep Dive

Frequently Asked Questions (2)

Which is better, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or o1?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 66 to 58. The biggest single separator in this matchup is GPQA, where the scores are 83.4% and 75.7%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or o1?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 83.4 versus 75.7. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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Last updated: April 24, 2026

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