Which is more cost-effective, Claude Sonnet 5 or GPT-5.2?

Based on 1M input + 1M output tokens, Claude Sonnet 5 costs $12.00/month versus GPT-5.2 at $15.75/month. The cheaper option depends on your token volume and prompt-to-completion ratio. Use the interactive calculator on this page to enter your exact usage.

How accurate is this cost comparison?

List prices come from each provider's own pricing page and every model page shows when they were last verified. The capability scores are iOPTERA's editorial composites — informed by public benchmarks, not benchmark results themselves; the methodology page explains how they are set.

Which model scores higher on benchmarks?

Claude Sonnet 5 scores 95 in coding and 92 in reasoning benchmarks. GPT-5.2 scores 94 in coding and 96 in reasoning. See the full 5-category breakdown in the Benchmark Comparison section above.

What are the context window sizes of Claude Sonnet 5 and GPT-5.2?

Claude Sonnet 5 supports a 1.0M-token context window while GPT-5.2 supports 400K tokens. A larger context window lets you process more text in a single API call.

Which model is faster for real-time applications?

Claude Sonnet 5 has a speed score of 88/100 and GPT-5.2 scores 85/100 on our latency benchmark. For interactive chatbots and low-latency tasks, the higher speed score is preferable.

Can I calculate costs for my specific token volume?

Yes. Use the interactive cost calculator on this page. Enter your monthly token volume and adjust the prompt-to-completion ratio. You can also use presets for common scenarios like Customer Support Bots (~30M tokens/month) or Document Summarizers (~15M tokens/month).

Cost and performance comparison

Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-5.2

Model AAnthropic

Claude Sonnet 5

Capability score (editorial)92/100

Cost / 1M Tokens: $4.40; 70% in · 30% out mix; ≈ $6.29 for the same text, tokenizer included
Value Index (score÷cost): 14.6; Higher = better value

Speed: 88/100
Context: 1.0M
Tier: Smart Tier

List price from the Anthropic pricing page, verified October 12, 2026.

Its tokenizer produces about 43% more tokens than OpenAI's for the same text, so the real cost runs higher than the list price suggests. This is an estimate: the tokenizer has not been measured yet.

Check the source

How we verify prices

Model BOpenAI

GPT-5.2

Capability score (editorial)96/100

Cost / 1M Tokens: $5.43; 70% in · 30% out mix
Value Index (score÷cost): 17.7; Higher = better value

Speed: 85/100
Context: 400K
Tier: Smart Tier

List price from the OpenAI pricing page, verified October 12, 2026.

Check the source

How we verify prices

In-depth analysis

Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-5.2: Detailed Comparison

Claude Sonnet 5 is Anthropic's mid-range-tier language model with a 1.0M-token context window, excelling at coding. GPT-5.2 from OpenAI is a mid-range-tier model supporting 400K tokens in context, with standout performance in reasoning.

Price is not the deciding factor here. For the same text, GPT-5.2 and Claude Sonnet 5 land within 14% of each other, which is inside the margin your own input/output ratio will move anyway. Pick on capability, context, or latency instead — the monthly bill will look much the same either way. Claude Sonnet 5 is priced at $2.00/M input tokens and $10.00/M output tokens. GPT-5.2 costs $1.75/M input and $14.00/M output.

Claude Sonnet 5 turns the same text into about 43% more tokens than GPT-5.2, because their tokenizers differ — so comparing list prices per token understates what Claude Sonnet 5 costs. For the same text, split 70% input and 30% output and counted the way OpenAI's tokenizer counts it, Claude Sonnet 5 works out at about $6.29 per million tokens and GPT-5.2 at $5.43. Every cost figure on this page includes that difference.

On iOPTERA's editorial scores, GPT-5.2 leads with 94/100 for coding and 96/100 for reasoning, against Claude Sonnet 5's 95/100 and 92/100.

Capability breakdown

Across the five core benchmark categories, here is how Claude Sonnet 5 and GPT-5.2 stack up head to head:

coding

Claude Sonnet leads

reasoning

GPT-5.2 leads

data extraction

Claude Sonnet leads

creative tasks

GPT-5.2 leads

vision/multimodal

GPT-5.2 leads

Best model by task

coding: Claude Sonnet 5 wins with 95/100
reasoning: GPT-5.2 wins with 96/100
data extraction: Claude Sonnet 5 wins with 92/100
creative tasks: GPT-5.2 wins with 95/100
vision/multimodal: GPT-5.2 wins with 92/100

Estimated monthly cost at scale

For 10M + 2M tokens of text a month (counted the way OpenAI's tokenizer counts), Claude Sonnet 5 runs about $57.20 while GPT-5.2 runs about $45.50 — GPT-5.2 saves roughly $11.70 (20%) every month.

What actually decides it

Claude Sonnet 5 and GPT-5.2 come from different labs, which means different tokenizers, different API shapes, and a second vendor relationship. The same English text does not produce the same token count on both, so a price-per-million comparison understates the difference — measure your own prompts on each before treating the headline rates as the full story.

Claude Sonnet 5 and GPT-5.2 were released within 6 months of each other, so they are competing on the same evaluations under roughly the same conditions. That makes a direct benchmark comparison meaningful here in a way it usually is not — neither model has the advantage of being measured on a newer, easier set of tests.

Claude Sonnet 5 carries the larger context window at 1.0M tokens versus 400K for GPT-5.2. The gap is real but not decisive — it matters if your prompts routinely run long, and is irrelevant if they sit where most production prompts sit, well under 100K. Bear in mind that filling a large window is also what makes a request expensive.

Throughput is close enough to ignore — 88/100 versus 85/100. Neither model will feel noticeably quicker in an interactive product, so latency is not a reason to choose between them.

With prices this close (14% apart), pick on fit rather than cost. GPT-5.2 holds the benchmark edge; weigh that against where each one is weakest — vision processing and data extraction respectively — and use the calculator above with your own token mix.

What you actually pay

The list price is only the start. Prompt caching, batch processing and long prompts change the bill, and each provider sets them differently. Prices per 1M tokens.

Pricing terms beyond the list price, per 1M tokens
Pricing term	Claude Sonnet 5	GPT-5.2
List price (input / output)	$2.00 / $10.00	$1.75 / $14.00
Cached input	$0.2010% of the input price	$0.17510% of the input price
Batch API	50% off input and output	50% off input and output
Long prompts	No surcharge across the 1M window	—
Input with 80% cache hits	$0.56	$0.49

With 80% of input served from the cache, GPT-5.2 costs 39% less than Claude Sonnet 5 for the same input text, counting each model's tokenizer.The tokenizer factor for Claude Sonnet 5 is our estimate until it is measured.

The last row assumes 80% of input tokens are read from the cache, as in a chat app that re-sends a long system prompt or RAG over the same documents. Cache-write and storage charges are not included.

Claude also bills cache writes: 1.25× the input price for a 5-minute cache, 2× for one hour.

Checked on October 8, 2026 against the pricing pages of Anthropic, OpenAI.

Capability scores

iOPTERA editorial scores across 5 categories — informed by public benchmarks, not measured by us

CategoryClaude SonnetGPT-5.2Winner

Coding

Reasoning

Extraction

Creative

Vision

Claude Sonnet 5: 2 wins

GPT-5.2: 3 wins

GPT-5.2 leads overall

Speed Score

88/100vs85/100

ClaudeGPT-5.2

Context Window

1000Kvs400K

ClaudeGPT-5.2

What Is a Token?

Models don't read words — they process tokens.

A token is roughly 4 characters of English text (~¾ of a word). Your API bill is priced per million tokens — understanding this directly reduces your costs.

Short phrase

"Hello, world!"

4 tokens

Claude Sonnet 5: $1.14
GPT-5.2: $0.70

Business email

One typical email (~200 words)

~270 tokens

Claude Sonnet 5: $77.22
GPT-5.2: $47.25

Code file

50-line Python script

~400 tokens

Claude Sonnet 5: $114.40
GPT-5.2: $70.00

Prices shown are for 100,000 runs of each workload — one run costs a fraction of a cent on both Claude Sonnet 5 and GPT-5.2, so the number only becomes meaningful at production volume. Input tokens only; add your output volume in the calculator below.

How to check your token usage

response.usage.total_tokens

Every API response includes a usage object. Sum total_tokens across all calls to get your monthly figure, then use the calculator below.

Your Cost Calculator

Enter your actual monthly token usage to see real savings

Quick Presets

Monthly Token Volume

30M tokens

Prompt / Completion Split

Prompt 70%Completion 30%

Claude Sonnet 5

$188.76/mo

$2,265.12/yr

$2.00/M input$10.00/M output

Cheaper

GPT-5.2

$162.75/mo

$1,953.00/yr

$1.75/M input$14.00/M output

Annual Savings

$312.12 saved per year

GPT-5.2 cheaper · $26.01/mo

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