Gemini 3.7 Flash wins on coding (89 vs 86) and price ($0.75 vs $2/1M input) and context window (1.048576M vs 500K). For most workflows, Grok 4.6 is the stronger default — finishes agent tasks in half the turns — cheap where it counts.
The shortest way to see the safest default, the lower-cost option, and the specialist pick before you read deeper.
Grok 4.6 is the safest overall answer here when you want the strongest default instead of the lowest list price.
Mistral: Mistral Nemo is the lower-cost option to start with when you still need useful output at scale.
Gemini 3.7 Flash is the better pick when response speed matters more than maximum reasoning depth.
Gemini 3.7 Flash leads on coding with a score of 89 vs 86 for Grok 4.6.
Gemini 3.7 Flash has the larger context window: 1.048576M vs 500K for Grok 4.6.
Gemini 3.7 Flash is cheaper at $0.75/1M input tokens vs $2/1M for Grok 4.6.
Grok 4.6 is the safer default: it is built for long-running agents and multi-step codebase work, which covers most of what people bring to this comparison.
Switch to Gemini 3.7 Flash when your work is mostly high-volume coding and long-context work at introductory Flash pricing; on that narrower brief it is the better tool.
Gemini 3.7 Flash is the more cost-efficient option at $0.75/1M input — Grok 4.6 costs 3x more per input token, so the gap is worth taking seriously wherever token volume rather than peak quality drives the bill.
Switch the scoring lens to see whether the top answer changes when you care more about cost, speed, or long-document work.
Google / Balanced / Aug 27, 2026
80.8% SWE-bench Verified at introductory Flash pricing.
Ranks models by the broadest mix of coding, writing, research, and long-context usefulness.
You are planning 2027 spend and need price certainty — the introductory rate expires December 31, 2026.
The fastest way to see where the recommendation shifts when your priority changes.
Finishes agent tasks in half the turns — cheap where it counts.
80.8% SWE-bench Verified at introductory Flash pricing.
Every figure below is the provider's list price or a published capability score — the same numbers the recommendation on this page is built from.
| Model | Input | Output | Est. month | Context | Speed | Coding | Writing | Research |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grok 4.6xAI | $2.00/1M | $6.00/1M | $32 | 500k tokens | Fast | 86 | 84 | 88 |
| Gemini 3.7 FlashGoogle | $0.75/1M | $3.75/1M | $15 | 1.0M tokens | Fast | 89 | 82 | 85 |
Capability scores are out of 100 and reflect our own weighting of published benchmarks and production signals — see how we evaluate models. “Est. month” assumes 10M input and 2M output tokens at list price, with no batch or caching discounts applied, so treat it as a ceiling.
What each one is genuinely good at, where it falls down, and the situations we would steer you away from it — not just the headline score.
xAI's long-horizon agent model — it finishes agentic tasks in roughly half the turns of its rivals, which makes it cheaper in practice than its per-token price suggests.
You need a published SWE-bench score to justify the pick, or your prompts routinely cross 200K tokens where the price doubles.
Buy it for turn efficiency, not for benchmark ceilings. On long agent runs, finishing in half the turns beats a model that scores two points higher and takes twice as many round trips.
Released August 12, 2026, succeeding Grok 4.5. Long-context billing is a cliff, not a ramp: at 200K tokens and above the whole request is charged at $4/$12. DeepSWE 65.9%, CursorBench 3.2 70.8%, FrontierCode 1.1 Extended 61.3%, Terminal-Bench 3.0 26.5%, APEX-Agents 57.5%.
Google's fastest-moving coding workhorse — 80.8% on SWE-bench Verified at half the price of Gemini 3.6 Flash, shipped just three weeks after it.
You are planning 2027 spend and need price certainty — the introductory rate expires December 31, 2026.
The best coding score per dollar in Google's lineup right now — 80.8% SWE-bench Verified at $0.75/1M input. Budget on the post-January 2027 price of $1.50/$7.50 if you are signing anything long-term.
Released August 13, 2026, only three weeks after Gemini 3.6 Flash. Introductory pricing of $0.75/$3.75 runs through December 31, 2026; on January 1, 2027 it doubles to $1.50/$7.50, which is exactly Gemini 3.6 Flash's rate.
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Grok 4.6 wins on more of the categories we score — coding, reasoning, research — so it is the better default of the two. Gemini 3.7 Flash is the better pick when your work is mostly high-volume coding and long-context work at introductory Flash pricing. Neither is universally "better": Grok 4.6 is aimed at long-running agents and multi-step codebase work, Gemini 3.7 Flash at high-volume coding and long-context work at introductory Flash pricing.
Gemini 3.7 Flash is cheaper at $0.75/1M input and $3.75/1M output. Grok 4.6 costs $2/1M input and $6/1M output.
Gemini 3.7 Flash has the larger context window at 1.048576M tokens vs Grok 4.6's 500K. For large document analysis, Gemini 3.7 Flash is the stronger pick.
Gemini 3.7 Flash is better for coding with a score of 89 vs Grok 4.6's 86 (out of 100). Claude Fable 5 is the overall coding leader in this directory at 100/100.
Both Grok 4.6 and Gemini 3.7 Flash have similar speed profiles — rated fast. Neither will be the bottleneck if latency is your deciding factor.
No published SWE-bench Verified or SWE-bench Pro figure, so it cannot be compared directly on the standard coding leaderboard. GPT-5.6 Sol Max beats it on DeepSWE v1.1 and Terminal-Bench 3.0. Prompts of 200K tokens or more are billed at $4/$12 across the entire request, not just the overage. Avoid it if you need a published SWE-bench score to justify the pick, or your prompts routinely cross 200K tokens where the price doubles. That is the main case for looking at Gemini 3.7 Flash instead.
The $0.75/$3.75 launch price is introductory — it doubles to $1.50/$7.50 on January 1, 2027. Still short of Claude Opus 5 (96%) and GPT-5.6 Sol (96.2%) on SWE-bench Verified for the hardest coding work. Avoid it if you are planning 2027 spend and need price certainty — the introductory rate expires December 31, 2026. Against Grok 4.6 specifically, the gap shows up most on coding (86 vs 89).
Take a moderate workload of 10M input and 2M output tokens a month. Grok 4.6 runs $32.00 (at $2/1M in and $6/1M out); Gemini 3.7 Flash runs $15.00 (at $0.75/1M in and $3.75/1M out). That is a $17.00/month difference — Gemini 3.7 Flash is the cheaper of the two at this volume, and the gap scales linearly as you send more. Output tokens dominate the bill on both, so prompt length matters far less than response length.
Yes, and for most teams that beats picking one. A common split is Grok 4.6 for long-running agents and multi-step codebase work, with Gemini 3.7 Flash handling high-volume coding and long-context work at introductory Flash pricing. Routing high-volume, low-stakes calls to Gemini 3.7 Flash at $0.75/1M and reserving Grok 4.6 for the hard cases is usually the cheapest arrangement that does not cost you quality.