Anthropic vs 
xAI
Verdict
- Anthropic's flagship leads: Claude Fable 5 at 70.4 vs Grok 4.6 at 63.8.
- xAI has the better model in 2 of 4 price bands.
- xAI's fastest ranked model (Grok 4.3, 113 tok/s) beats Anthropic's (Claude Haiku 4.5, 83 tok/s).
- Anthropic ships more often: one model every 40 days against every 42.
Best model per price band
Each provider’s highest-index model below the price ceiling. Purple marks the winner of the band.
| Price band | Anthropic | xAI |
|---|---|---|
| Under $0.50/M | – | – |
| Under $2/M | Claude 3 Haiku 36.9$0.500/M | Grok 4.3 medium 60.7$1.56/M |
| Under $10/M | Claude Sonnet 5 61.2$4.00/M | Grok 4.6 medium 63.8$3.00/M |
| Any price | Claude Fable 5 70.4$20.00/M | Grok 4.6 medium 63.8$3.00/M |
Line-up
| Metric | Anthropic | xAI |
|---|---|---|
| Flagship index | 70.4 | 63.8 |
| Ranked models | 20 | 14 |
| Open-weights models | 0 | 0 |
| Cheapest ranked, $/M | $0.500 | $1.25 |
| Fastest ranked, tok/s | 83 | 113 |
| Release cadence, days | 40 | 42 |
| Last release | 1 Sept 2026 | 12 Aug 2026 |
| Next expected | 25 Sept 2026 – 27 Oct 2026 | 6 Sept 2026 – 9 Oct 2026 |