Claude Sonnet 5 vs Phi 4

    Comparison

    As of August 20, 2026, Phi 4 is 98% cheaper per million tokens than Claude Sonnet 5. Claude Sonnet 5 is $2.00 / $10.00 per million input/output tokens versus Phi 4 at $0.07 / $0.14. Sources: https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing and https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/cognitive-services/openai-service/

    Sources: Anthropic Claude API pricing (https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing); Microsoft pricing (https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/cognitive-services/openai-service/)

    Claude Sonnet 5

    Anthropic

    $12.00blended / 1M

    Input

    $2.00

    Output

    $10.00

    1M ctx|Proprietary
    98%
    cheaper
    Better value

    Phi 4

    Microsoft

    $0.21blended / 1M

    Input

    $0.07

    Output

    $0.14

    16K ctx|Open Source
    Save $11.79 per million tokens by choosing Phi 4 over Claude Sonnet 5.

    Claude Sonnet 5 vs Phi 4 comparison

    Token pricing, specs, and benchmarks side by side

    Metric
    Claude Sonnet 5
    Phi 4
    Provider
    Provider
    Anthropic
    Microsoft
    License
    Proprietary
    Open Source
    Release Date
    2026-06-30
    2024-12-12
    Pricing (per 1M tokens)
    Input Price+2757%
    $2.00
    $0.07
    Output Price+7043%
    $10.00
    $0.14
    Blended (1M + 1M)
    $12.00
    $0.21
    Model Details
    Context Window
    1M
    16K
    Max Output Tokens
    64K
    16K
    Knowledge Cutoff
    2026-01
    2024-06-01
    Throughput
    42 tok/s
    33 tok/s
    Benchmarks
    57.4%
    56.1%
    80.3%
    56.1%
    61.2%
    53.9%
    53.9%
    53.6%
    1544.16
    84.7%
    63%
    81.2%
    74.7%
    88.3%
    80%
    13.8%
    28.8%
    84.8%
    83.0%
    82.6%
    80.4%
    32.5%
    75.4%
    72.2%
    37.3%
    86.7%
    67.0%
    16.9%
    75.5%
    66.3%
    38.8%
    81.6%
    47.6%
    47.5%
    76.0%
    80.6%
    87.5%
    70.4%
    59.4%
    56.2%
    48.9%
    60.6%
    46.5%
    75.6%
    79.5%
    Benchmark Wins
    Claude Sonnet 5 4|0 Phi 4

    Verdict

    Claude Sonnet 5 vs Phi 4: the bottom line

    Phi 4 offers significantly lower pricing, while Claude Sonnet 5 leads on benchmark performance. Your choice depends on whether cost efficiency or raw capability matters more for your use case.

    Claude Sonnet 5 vs Phi 4 FAQ

    Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5 or Phi 4?

    As of August 20, 2026, Phi 4 is 98% cheaper on blended LLM API pricing. Phi 4 costs $0.07 per million input tokens and $0.14 per million output tokens ($0.21 blended 1M-in + 1M-out). Claude Sonnet 5 costs $2.00 / $10.00 per million tokens ($12.00 blended). Sources: https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing and https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/cognitive-services/openai-service/. The cheapest LLM for your app still depends on how many output tokens you generate.

    How much does Claude Sonnet 5 vs Phi 4 cost per million tokens?

    Claude Sonnet 5 Claude API pricing from Anthropic is $2.00 input and $10.00 output per million tokens via Anthropic. Phi 4 Microsoft API pricing is $0.07 input and $0.14 output per million tokens via Microsoft. Use those four numbers, not ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro subscription prices, when you are comparing APIs.

    Which is better for coding, Claude Sonnet 5 or Phi 4?

    Claude Sonnet 5 has a published SWE-bench Verified score of 85.2%. Phi 4 does not have that eval on this page yet.

    What is the context window for Claude Sonnet 5 vs Phi 4?

    Claude Sonnet 5 supports a 1M token context window, while Phi 4 supports 16K tokens. Claude Sonnet 5 offers a larger context window. Filling a larger window bills more input tokens, so the cheaper-per-million model can still cost more on long documents.

    Which model performs better on benchmarks, Claude Sonnet 5 or Phi 4?

    Claude Sonnet 5 leads on 4 of 4 shared benchmarks versus Phi 4's 0 wins. Check the comparison table for GPQA Diamond, SWE-bench, MMLU, HLE, and the other evals we track. Token price and benchmark score together are the usual LLM comparison, not either number alone.

    Is Claude Sonnet 5 or Phi 4 better for production use?

    Both Claude Sonnet 5 and Phi 4 are production API models. For cost-sensitive production traffic, Phi 4 has better economics on the blended 1M-in + 1M-out scale. For maximum capability, weight the benchmark table for your domain. Many production stacks route cheap models for drafts and a frontier model for the hard turn, which is usually cheaper than sending everything to the expensive API.

    Can I switch between Claude Sonnet 5 and Phi 4 in my app?

    Yes. Call Claude Sonnet 5 through Anthropic and Phi 4 through Microsoft with separate API keys, or through a gateway that already wraps both. Keep prompts in tokens, not characters, when you estimate the invoice. AnotherWrapper templates can swap providers without rewriting auth and billing.

    How accurate is this Claude Sonnet 5 vs Phi 4 pricing data?

    List rates are the latest published Claude API pricing from Anthropic and Microsoft API pricing, quoted per million tokens. Official rate sheets: https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing and https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/cognitive-services/openai-service/. Prompt caching, batch APIs, and committed-use discounts can change the invoice. Benchmark scores are from official publications and independent evals, updated as new numbers land.

    What is the output token limit for Claude Sonnet 5 and Phi 4?

    Claude Sonnet 5 supports up to 64K output tokens per request, while Phi 4 supports up to 16K output tokens. Output tokens are usually the expensive half of API pricing, so a higher max output cap is a capability, not a discount.

    Which model has better throughput, Claude Sonnet 5 or Phi 4?

    Claude Sonnet 5 runs at approximately 42 tokens/second while Phi 4 runs at 33 tokens/second. Claude Sonnet 5 is faster in raw throughput. Throughput (tokens per second) and time-to-first-token are why two models with the same per-million-token price can still feel different in chat and agents.

    How do I switch the models in this Claude Sonnet 5 vs Phi 4 comparison?

    Use the model pickers at the top of this LLM comparison. Search any model in the index and the URL updates. Open Claude Sonnet 5 or Phi 4 from the sidebar for the single-model API pricing page, or go back to the LLM pricing table to sort by cheapest blended cost.

    Claude Sonnet 5 vs Phi 4 pricing

    This comparison covers API pricing, context window, throughput, and benchmark scores. Claude Sonnet 5 costs $2.00/M input and $10.00/M output. Phi 4 costs $0.07/M input and $0.14/M output.

    Rank both on the LLM leaderboard, SWE-bench, and Humanity's Last Exam.

    The index

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