Side-by-side benchmark comparison across knowledge, coding, math, and reasoning.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 86 to 56. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
Claude Sonnet 4.6's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 72 against 49.3. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is GPQA, 97 to 77.2. o3-mini does hit back in instruction following, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $3.00 input / $15.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $1.10 input / $4.40 output per 1M tokens for o3-mini. That is roughly 3.4x on output cost alone. o3-mini is the reasoning model in the pair, while Claude Sonnet 4.6 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.
Pick Claude Sonnet 4.6 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. o3-mini only becomes the better choice if instruction following is the priority or you want the cheaper token bill.
Claude Sonnet 4.6
81.3
o3-mini
82.1
Claude Sonnet 4.6
72
o3-mini
49.3
Claude Sonnet 4.6
96.4
o3-mini
87.3
Claude Sonnet 4.6
91
o3-mini
93.9
Claude Sonnet 4.6 is ahead overall, 86 to 56. The biggest single separator in this matchup is GPQA, where the scores are 97 and 77.2.
o3-mini has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 82.1 versus 81.3. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 72 versus 49.3. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 96.4 versus 87.3. Inside this category, AIME 2024 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
o3-mini has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 93.9 versus 91. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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