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Every score has a dated snapshot.

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  3. Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs OpenAI o1

Pairwise benchmark snapshot · Aug 1, 2026

Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs OpenAI o1 benchmark

In this head-to-head showdown, OpenAI o1 delivers higher overall intelligence and human-preferred responses (Elo 1,512 vs 1,280), while Claude 3.5 Sonnet leads in SWE-bench software engineering benchmarks (49%), while Claude 3.5 Sonnet is more budget-friendly at $15/1M per 1M output tokens. Review the complete breakdown below to determine which model best fits your performance and budget requirements.

Executive Comparison Verdict

Bottom Line: Choose OpenAI o1 if your priority is peak reasoning, complex code generation, and top preference Elo. Choose Claude 3.5 Sonnet if you are optimizing for low latency, high throughput, and cost-efficient API deployment.
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Verified Head-to-Head Advantage Breakdown

8 direct benchmark disciplines evaluated across capability, speed, and cost

Claude 3.5 Sonnet (5)OpenAI o1 (3)
Claude 3.5 Sonnet
5 of 8 Wins
✓SWE-bench✓Time to first token✓Output speed✓Input price✓Output price
OpenAI o1
3 of 8 Wins
✓Preference Elo✓LiveBench✓GPQA Diamond
Anthropic
Leads 5 of 8 metrics
Claude 3.5 Sonnet

2024 workhorse. Still a high-intent compare against GPT-4o.

Elo 1,280$15/1M out
OpenAI
Leads 3 of 8 metrics
OpenAI o1

OpenAI pioneer reasoning foundation model designed for complex science, math, and multi-step reasoning.

Elo 1,512$60/1M out

OpenAI o1 Thinking Depth & Cost Scaler

Model B

Simulate accuracy gains vs added response time & token cost

Mode: Medium (Standard)

Reasoning models “think before answering” by generating internal reasoning tokens. Higher effort improves math, coding, and logic accuracy, but increases response delay and token costs.

Thinking Delay
420 ms
Standard speed
Reasoning Depth
~1,500
Internal tokens
Cost / 1k Calls
$115.50
4.5× standard bill
Accuracy Boost
+4.5% accuracy
STEM & SWE-bench
Top Rival Showdowns for Claude 3.5 Sonnet
All Matchups
Compare vs:vs GPT-5vs Gemini 3 Provs Grok 4.6vs DeepSeek V4 Provs Qwen 3 Max
Preference LeaderOpenAI o1 Wins

OpenAI o1

Δ 232 Arena Elo pts

Throughput LeaderClaude 3.5 Sonnet Wins

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

80 tok/s

Value per Dollar LeaderClaude 3.5 Sonnet Wins

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

$15 / 1M output

Capability Percentiles

Relative percentile scores computed across all active models in the benchmark catalog.

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

Leaders Matchup Capability Radar

Comparing top Western standard models with China's leading frontier rival across 6 skill dimensions. Tap any spoke or dot to inspect.

Tap any node to inspect
0–100 %ile
Head-to-Head Comparison

Overall Matchup Breakdown

Category wins across reasoning intelligence, generation speed, and token cost.

Claude 3.5 Sonnet (5)vsOpenAI o1 (4)
Claude 3.5 Sonnet: 5W (56%)Overall: Claude 3.5 SonnetOpenAI o1: 4W (44%)
← Claude 3.5 Sonnet1 tiesOpenAI o1 →
🏆OpenAI o1(4/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

Preference Elo, Coding proficiency, SWE-bench & LiveBench accuracy

Benchmark
Claude 3.5 SonnetvsOpenAI o1
Preference Elo
1,280vs1,512+232
Coding Elo
—vs1,485
SWE-bench
49%vs48.9%+0.1%
LiveBench
52.1%vs65.4%+13.3%
GPQA Diamond
65%vs78%+13%
Claude 3.5 Sonnet: 1WOpenAI o1: 4W
🏆Claude 3.5 Sonnet(2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Benchmark
Claude 3.5 SonnetvsOpenAI o1
Output speed
80 tok/svs45 tok/s+35 tok/s
Time to first token
280 msvs420 ms+140 ms
Claude 3.5 Sonnet: 2WOpenAI o1: 0W
🏆Claude 3.5 Sonnet(2/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Benchmark
Claude 3.5 SonnetvsOpenAI o1
Output price
$15/1Mvs$60/1M+$45/1M
Input price
$3/1Mvs$15/1M+$12/1M
Context window
200kvs200k
Claude 3.5 Sonnet: 2WOpenAI o1: 0W

Side-by-Side Benchmark Matrix

Preference Elo+232
Claude 3.5 Sonnet1,280
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
OpenAI o11,512
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Coding Elo
Claude 3.5 Sonnet—
OpenAI o11,485
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
LiveBench+13.3%
Claude 3.5 Sonnet52.1%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
OpenAI o165.4%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
SWE-bench+0.1%
Claude 3.5 Sonnet49%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
OpenAI o148.9%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
GPQA Diamond+13%
Claude 3.5 Sonnet65%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
OpenAI o178%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Time to first token+140 ms
Claude 3.5 Sonnet280 ms
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
OpenAI o1420 ms
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Output speed+35 tok/s
Claude 3.5 Sonnet80 tok/s
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
OpenAI o145 tok/s
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Input price+$12/1M
Claude 3.5 Sonnet$3/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
OpenAI o1$15/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Output price+$45/1M
Claude 3.5 Sonnet$15/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
OpenAI o1$60/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Context window
Claude 3.5 Sonnet200k
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
OpenAI o1200k
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
BenchmarkClaude 3.5 SonnetOpenAI o1Advantage Delta
Preference Elo
1,280
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
1,512
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
+232
Coding Elo—
1,485
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
—
LiveBench
52.1%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
65.4%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
+13.3%
SWE-bench
49%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
48.9%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
+0.1%
GPQA Diamond
65%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
78%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
+13%
Time to first token
280 ms
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
420 ms
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
+140 ms
Output speed
80 tok/s
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
45 tok/s
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
+35 tok/s
Input price
$3/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
$15/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
+$12/1M
Output price
$15/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
$60/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
+$45/1M
Context window
200k
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
200k
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
—
Interactive Simulator (USD)

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Simulate monthly production API costs in USD (US Dollar).

Save up to 77% with Claude 3.5 Sonnet
Monthly Volume50M tokens/mo
Quick Presets:
Token Ratio (In vs Out)70% In / 30% Out
RAG / Search (10% out)Coding / Chat (50% out)
Claude 3.5 Sonnet$330.00 / mo
In: $105Out: $225
OpenAI o1$1,425.00 / mo
In: $525Out: $900
Estimated Cost Delta

Claude 3.5 Sonnet is estimated to save $1,095.00/month ($13,140/year).

Based on 50M tokens (30% gen)

Key Selection Recommendations

  • 1
    Claude 3.5 Sonnet:Pick Claude 3.5 Sonnet when repo-level coding accuracy is the constraint.
  • 2
    Claude 3.5 Sonnet:Pick Claude 3.5 Sonnet when time-to-first-token matters more than peak Elo.
  • 3
    OpenAI o1:Pick OpenAI o1 as the default general assistant.

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsClaude 3.5 Sonnet

Higher SWE-bench (49%).

High-volume chatClaude 3.5 Sonnet

Lower output list price ($15/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIClaude 3.5 Sonnet

Lower TTFT (280 ms).

Long-document RAGClaude 3.5 Sonnet

Larger window (200k).

Screenshots / visionOpenAI o1

Both accept images. Defaulting to the higher-Elo side (OpenAI o1).

Target WorkloadRecommended PickEvaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agentsClaude 3.5 SonnetHigher SWE-bench (49%).
High-volume chatClaude 3.5 SonnetLower output list price ($15/1M).
Voice / low-latency UIClaude 3.5 SonnetLower TTFT (280 ms).
Long-document RAGClaude 3.5 SonnetLarger window (200k).
Screenshots / visionOpenAI o1Both accept images. Defaulting to the higher-Elo side (OpenAI o1).
Community Sentiment

Cast Your Matchup Vote

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CompareLLM AI Matrix

Verified Head-to-Head Telemetry

LIVE BENCHMARK
VS
Anthropic

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

Elo 1,280
SWE-bench49%
Speed (tok/s)80 tok/s
Input / 1M Tokens$3/1M
Output / 1M Tokens$15/1M
OpenAI

OpenAI o1

Elo 1,512
SWE-bench48.9%
Speed (tok/s)45 tok/s
Input / 1M Tokens$15/1M
Output / 1M Tokens$60/1M

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Claude 3.5 Sonnet or OpenAI o1?
OpenAI o1 has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,512). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.
Which is better at coding, Claude 3.5 Sonnet or OpenAI o1?
Claude 3.5 Sonnet leads SWE-bench at 49% vs 48.9%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.
Which is cheaper to run in production?
Claude 3.5 Sonnet output tokens are $15/1M versus $60/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.
Which is faster, Claude 3.5 Sonnet or OpenAI o1?
Claude 3.5 Sonnet has the lower time-to-first-token (280 ms vs 420 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.
Which has the larger context window?
Claude 3.5 Sonnet accepts 200k tokens versus 200k.
Can I self-host either model?
Neither model is marked open-weights here. You are comparing hosted APIs.
Are these scores from CompareLLM’s own evals?
No. V1 aggregates public leaderboards (and optional first-party latency pings). Each cell names its source and date. Read /methodology.
What does preference Elo mean on this page?
Preference Elo is a crowd vote from LMArena / Arena. People see two hidden answers and pick the one they like more. The model that wins more often gets a higher Elo. That means people preferred it — not that it passed a school test. It is not SWE-bench, not accuracy, and not a number we invent. Claude 3.5 Sonnet and OpenAI o1 Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

All Claude 3.5 Sonnet matchups →|All OpenAI o1 matchups →
Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs Claude 3.7 Sonnet (next sonnet)OpenAI o1 vs GPT-4o (previous gpt-flagship)OpenAI o1 vs GPT-4.5 Orion (next gpt-flagship)Claude Opus 4.5 vs OpenAI o1Claude Opus 4.6 vs OpenAI o1Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs OpenAI o1