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text model comparison

Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Gemini 4 Hydrogen

Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Gemini 4 Hydrogen are both current text models, from Anthropic and Google. Gemini 4 Hydrogen is 25% cheaper per 1M input tokens than Claude Sonnet 5.5, $1.50 vs $2. On Arena Text, Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores 1473 Elo and Gemini 4 Hydrogen 1490 Elo (Arena, measured November 11, 2026). Both accept about 1.05M tokens of context (1,000,000 and 1,048,576).

Higher Arena Text
Gemini 4 Hydrogen1490 Elo against 1473 Elo
Lower price per 1M input tokens
Gemini 4 Hydrogen$1.50 against $2
Longer context window
Gemini 4 Hydrogen1.05M tokens against 1M tokens
Newer release
Gemini 4 HydrogenNov 2026 against Sep 2026

Data verified November 15, 2026 · Dataset 2026-11-15

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Side by side

Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Gemini 4 Hydrogen, line by line

Prices in effect today, compared at the same tier wherever both list one. The better value in each row is highlighted.

FactClaude Sonnet 5.5Gemini 4 Hydrogen
Price
Price per 1M input tokens$2$1.50 (better)
Price per 1M output tokens$10$7.50 (better)
Independent benchmarks
Arena Text1473 Elo (#22 of 50)1490 Elo (#7 of 50) (better)
Arena WebDev1772 Elo (#3 of 45) (better)1704 Elo (#7 of 45)
GPQA Diamond95.6% (#4 of 40)Not measured
FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2)88.8% (#9 of 39)Not measured
SimpleQA Verified46.5% (#22 of 36)Not measured
Specs
ProviderAnthropicGoogle
Release dateSeptember 28, 2026November 12, 2026
AccessAPI onlyAPI only
Context window1,000,000 tokens1,048,576 tokens
Max output128,000 tokens65,536 tokens
Inputtext, imagetext, image, audio, video
Outputtexttext

Scores:Arena · 2026-11-15Epoch AI · 2026-11-11

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Provider results

What the labs report

Results tables a lab published with one of its models, where it lists both Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Gemini 4 Hydrogen. These are the lab's own figures, not independent measurements, and each table is read on its own: labs run benchmarks with different harnesses and budgets.

Google DeepMind, Gemini 4 Hydrogen model card table, November 12, 2026Google DeepMind · 2026-11-15

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Gemini 4 Hydrogen
SWE-sweep3.1%13.5% (better)
Terminal-Bench 4.1cheating-adjusted63.9% (better)57.0%
Agents' Last Exam v1.1score60.4%71.6% (better)
Vending-Bench 2bank balance$11,165$14,549 (better)
OSWorld-2.1offline subset83.9% (better)77.6%
Chartography61.6%66.6% (better)
Terminal-Bench-Science 0.159.9% (better)51.4%

Google's results table from the Gemini 4 Hydrogen model card, every model at its highest thinking setting; Google's methodology is at deepmind.google/models/evals-methodology/gemini-4-hydrogen. Left out here: AutomationBench-AA and HLE-Diamond, which Google takes from the Artificial Analysis leaderboard, and MKA Climb, where every score but Hydrogen's comes from Artificial Analysis.

Charts

Against every current text model

Where Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Gemini 4 Hydrogen land among the current models of their task, on every independent benchmark, on price and on context.

Where each stands

On Arena Text, Claude Sonnet 5.5 ranks #22 and Gemini 4 Hydrogen #7 of 50 current models. Each bar is the share of current models it beats: on score, price and context.

Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Gemini 4 Hydrogen among the current text models, one row per benchmark, price and context window.

Independent benchmarks

Arena Text

Claude Sonnet 5.5:#22of 50

1,473 Elo · ahead of 55%

Gemini 4 Hydrogen:#7of 50

1,490 Elo · ahead of 88%

Arena WebDev

Claude Sonnet 5.5:#3of 45

1,772 Elo · ahead of 95%

Gemini 4 Hydrogen:#7of 45

1,704 Elo · ahead of 86%

GPQA Diamond

Claude Sonnet 5.5:#4of 40

95.6% · ahead of 92%

Gemini 4 Hydrogen: Not scored

FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2)

Claude Sonnet 5.5:#9of 39

88.8% · ahead of 79%

Gemini 4 Hydrogen: Not scored

SimpleQA Verified

Claude Sonnet 5.5:#22of 36

46.5% · ahead of 40%

Gemini 4 Hydrogen: Not scored

Price and context

Price per 1M input tokens

Claude Sonnet 5.5:#34of 58

$2 · cheaper than 23%

Gemini 4 Hydrogen:#32of 58

$1.50 · cheaper than 44%

Price per 1M output tokens

Claude Sonnet 5.5:#39of 58

$10 · cheaper than 25%

Gemini 4 Hydrogen:#36of 58

$7.50 · cheaper than 37%

Context window

Claude Sonnet 5.5:#31of 68

1M tokens · longer than 22%

Gemini 4 Hydrogen:#12of 68

1.05M tokens · longer than 61%

Scores fromArena · 2026-11-15Epoch AI · 2026-11-11

Quality against price

Arena Text · measured November 11, 2026

Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores 1,473 at $4; Gemini 4 Hydrogen scores 1,490 at $3 (blended price per 1M tokens). The line joins the current models no other beats on both price and Arena Text score; hover any point to name it.

Quality against priceArena Text score against price for 42 text models, Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Gemini 4 Hydrogen marked.1,2501,3001,3501,4001,4501,5001,550$0.30$1$3$10MOST ATTRACTIVE QUADRANTMedian price $2.58Median 1,473Blended price per 1M tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scaleArena Text (Elo)Gemini 4 HydrogenClaude Sonnet 5.5
Quality against price: the data
Arena Text score against price for 42 text models, Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Gemini 4 Hydrogen marked.
ModelProviderBlended price per 1M tokensArena Text (Elo)
Gemini 4 CarbonGoogle$41,526
Gemini 4 ArgonGoogle$41,522
Muse WonderMeta$81,511
Claude Opus 5.5Anthropic$81,507
Gemini 3.8 FlashGoogle$1.501,497
Muse Spark 1.3Meta$21,497
Gemini 4 HydrogenGoogle$31,490
Kimi K3Moonshot Kimi$61,487
GPT-5.6 SolOpenAI$81,485
Kimi K3.1 ProMoonshot Kimi$41,485
Qwen3.8-MaxAlibaba Qwen$31,484
Gemini 3.6 FlashGoogle$31,483
GLM-5.3Z.ai$2.151,482
GPT-5.5OpenAI$111,481
GPT-6.1 SolOpenAI$41,481
MiMo-V2.6-ProXiaomi MiMo$0.541,480
GPT-5.4OpenAI$5.631,475
DeepSeek-V4.1-FlashDeepSeek$0.521,475
GLM-5.3-FlashZ.ai$0.241,475
GPT-6 AstraOpenAI$201,474
Gemini 3 Flash PreviewGoogle$1.131,473
Claude Sonnet 5.5Anthropic$41,473
Grok 4.20xAI$1.561,472
GPT-5.6 TerraOpenAI$4.501,468
Grok 4.5xAI$31,466
DeepSeek-V4-ProDeepSeek$1.981,464
Grok 4.6xAI$31,457
GPT-6 SolOpenAI$41,457
Gemini 3.5 Flash-LiteGoogle$0.851,455
GPT-5.6 LunaOpenAI$0.451,453
Step 5 PreviewStepFun$1.431,449
MiMo-V2.6-FlashXiaomi MiMo$0.181,448
Grok 4.7xAI$31,443
Grok 4.3xAI$1.561,442
GPT-6 LunaOpenAI$0.201,441
Claude Haiku 5.5Anthropic$0.201,421
Mistral Large 4Mistral AI$1.051,420
GPT-4.1OpenAI$3.501,415
Inkling 2 SmallThinking Machines Lab$0.471,412
Solar Pro 4Upstage$0.521,387
GPT-4.1 miniOpenAI$0.701,383
GPT-4.1 nanoOpenAI$0.181,322

Cost

What each costs

Example workloads at each provider's listed rates, then every other rate either one lists. The cheaper figure in each row is highlighted.

The same work, priced

For 10M input and 2M output tokens, Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs 1.3 times as much as Gemini 4 Hydrogen, at each provider's listed rates.

What Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Gemini 4 Hydrogen cost for the same work, at the rates each provider lists.

  • 10M input and 2M output tokens

    Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs 1.3× as much

    Claude Sonnet 5.5
    $40
    Gemini 4 Hydrogen
    $30

  • The same, with 9M of the input tokens cached

    Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs 1.3× as much

    Claude Sonnet 5.5
    $22.90
    Gemini 4 Hydrogen
    $17.18

  • The same, through the batch API

    Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs 1.3× as much

    Claude Sonnet 5.5
    $20
    Gemini 4 Hydrogen
    $15
Workload or rateClaude Sonnet 5.5Gemini 4 Hydrogen
Example workloads
10M input and 2M output tokens$40$30 (better)
The same, with 9M of the input tokens cached$22.90$17.18 (better)
The same, through the batch API$20$15 (better)
Other listed rates
1M input tokens, cached$0.10$0.075 (better)
1M input tokens, 5-minute cache write$2.50Not listed
1M input tokens, 1-hour cache write$4Not listed
1M input tokens, batch$1$0.75 (better)
1M output tokens, batch$5$3.75 (better)
1M input tokens, priorityNot listed$2.70
1M output tokens, priorityNot listed$13.50

Your own bill will differ. These figures use list prices and example workloads. The AI Model Cost Audit reviews your real usage, shortlists models that score as well for each task for less, and estimates the savings.

Launch price $100, regular price $150

See the cost audit

Verdict

When to choose each

Claude Sonnet 5.5

Where it leads

  • Higher Arena WebDev score, 1772 Elo vs 1704 Elo
  • Longer responses, up to 128,000 vs 65,536 output tokens

Best for

  • Production workloads that need frontier-adjacent quality at a mid-tier rate
  • Latency-sensitive agent steps inside a larger pipeline

Watch out for

  • Same list price as Claude Sonnet 5, so the gain is capability and cache economics rather than a cheaper rate card
  • Anthropic positions Opus 5.5 rather than this as the default, so reach for Sonnet 5.5 when latency matters more than peak capability
Full Claude Sonnet 5.5 profile

Gemini 4 Hydrogen

Where it leads

  • Lower input and output prices, $1.50 and $7.50 vs $2 and $10 per 1M tokens
  • Higher Arena Text score, 1490 Elo vs 1473 Elo
  • Accepts audio and video input
  • Cheaper cached input, $0.075 vs $0.10 per 1M tokens
  • Cheaper batch processing, $15 vs $20 for 10M input and 2M output tokens

Best for

  • Everyday coding, tool-using agents and parallel sub-agents at a mid-tier price
  • Document, chart and video workflows over very long multimodal inputs

Watch out for

  • In Google's own table Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher on Terminal-Bench 4.1 (63.9% against 57.0%), OSWorld-2.1 (83.9% against 77.6%) and Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (59.9% against 51.4%)
  • A request returns at most 65,536 output tokens by default; longer outputs, up to 1,048,576 tokens, need Google long-decode mode, and only implicit context caching is supported
  • Arena places it below Claude Sonnet 5.5 on WebDev (1704 against 1772) and just below Gemini 3.8 Flash on Arena Text (1490 against 1497), on 4,741 text and 1,997 WebDev votes so far; Epoch AI has not measured it yet
Full Gemini 4 Hydrogen profile

From benchmark to production

Building on Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Gemini 4 Hydrogen?

Public scores rarely hold on your own data. We test both models on your real tasks, then build the agent or pipeline around the one that wins.

AI Model Cost AuditLaunch price $100, regular price $150

See the cost auditAI agent development

FAQ

Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Gemini 4 Hydrogen FAQ

Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Gemini 4 Hydrogen?

Gemini 4 Hydrogen is 25% cheaper per 1M input tokens than Claude Sonnet 5.5, $1.50 vs $2. For 10M input and 2M output tokens, Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs $40 and Gemini 4 Hydrogen $30 at standard rates.

Which is cheaper with prompt caching, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Gemini 4 Hydrogen?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 charges $0.10 per 1M cached input tokens, 95% below its standard input rate, and Gemini 4 Hydrogen $0.075, 95% below. With 9M of 10M input tokens cached and 2M output tokens, Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs $22.90 and Gemini 4 Hydrogen $17.18.

Which scores higher on independent benchmarks, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Gemini 4 Hydrogen?

Gemini 4 Hydrogen leads on Arena Text, 1490 Elo to 1473 Elo; Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads on Arena WebDev, 1772 Elo to 1704 Elo. Scores are independent evaluations, not either vendor's launch figures.

How do Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Gemini 4 Hydrogen compare in Google DeepMind's own results?

In the Gemini 4 Hydrogen model card table (November 12, 2026), Gemini 4 Hydrogen leads on SWE-sweep, 13.5% to 3.1%; Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads on Terminal-Bench 4.1 (cheating-adjusted), 63.9% to 57.0%; Gemini 4 Hydrogen leads on Agents' Last Exam v1.1 (score), 71.6% to 60.4%. These are Google DeepMind's figures, not independent measurements.

Which has the larger context window, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Gemini 4 Hydrogen?

Both accept about 1.05M tokens of context (1,000,000 and 1,048,576). Claude Sonnet 5.5 returns up to 128,000 tokens per response, Gemini 4 Hydrogen 65,536.

How do Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Gemini 4 Hydrogen differ in features?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 takes text and image input; Gemini 4 Hydrogen takes text, image, audio and video.

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Further reading

More on Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Gemini 4 Hydrogen

Articles on Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Gemini 4 Hydrogen

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Production evaluation

Choosing between Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Gemini 4 Hydrogen?

Public benchmarks narrow the shortlist. We run both on your own tasks, data and cost limits, then build the routing and review controls to run the winner in production.

  • A head-to-head evaluation on your real workload
  • Routing between models by cost and difficulty
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