Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Beam 1.0 501B A23B

Updated October 21, 2026. 28 benchmarks have a result for both. Coding is ranked on the Vibe Coding Index; every other board is shown as published.

Replace Claude Sonnet 4.6 Replace Beam 1.0 501B A23B

Claude Sonnet 4.6Anthropic

Coding: 57.8
Overall: 30.1
Output $/M: $15.00

R Beam 1.0 501B A23BReflection

Coding: 33.8
Overall: No data
Output $/M: $1.00

vs boards won of 28 shared

Decision reading

Pick Claude Sonnet 4.6 for coding: it scores 57.8 on the Vibe Coding Index against 33.8 for Beam 1.0 501B A23B.

Pick Beam 1.0 501B A23B when output tokens cost 15.0x less, or when the context window is larger, 1.05M against 1M tokens.

Model AClaude Sonnet 4.6Anthropic57.8/1002 independent benchmarks$1.68 per solved task Model BBeam 1.0 501B A23BReflection33.8/1001 independent benchmarkNo cost per solved task

2889

Shared results: 28
Claude Sonnet 4.6 only: 89
Beam 1.0 501B A23B only: 0
Like-for-like categories: 6 of 9

Shared results can support a head-to-head reading. Results only one model has describe coverage, not superiority.

Which one for your work

Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.

Coding
Vibe Coding Index, four public coding benchmarks
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores 57.8 against 33.8.
2 and 1 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 has a AA Intelligence Index result, 30.1.
Directional only
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 has a AA Agentic Index result, 31.8.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 has a GPQA Diamond result, 85.6%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 has a AIME result, 92.3%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 has a MMLU Pro result, 87.3%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads, 1285 against 1253.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Beam 1.0 501B A23B
Beam 1.0 501B A23B takes 1.05M tokens against 1M.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Beam 1.0 501B A23B
Claude Sonnet 4.6 $0.011, Beam 1.0 501B A23B $0.0008 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 has the number, $1.68.
Directional only

At a glance

Coding index: Claude Sonnet 4.6 57.8 from 2 benchmarks, Beam 1.0 501B A23B 33.8 from 1 benchmark.
Widest category: Coding, 9.9 points apart on average over 5 shared benchmarks.
Widest single gap: LMArena WebDev: HTML: Claude Sonnet 4.6 1527 against Beam 1.0 501B A23B 1436, 15.1 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
Output price: Claude Sonnet 4.6 $15.00 against Beam 1.0 501B A23B $1.00 per million output tokens, 15.0x apart.
Context window: Claude Sonnet 4.6 takes 1M tokens, Beam 1.0 501B A23B 1.05M.

Benchmark by benchmark

First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.

Boards won, where both have a result
Category	Claude Sonnet 4.6	Bars	Beam 1.0 501B A23B	Ties
Coding	5		0
Reasoning	3		0
Math	2		0
Knowledge	4		0
Web design	2		0
General	12		0
All shared boards	28		0

CodingLike-for-likeFour of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index50

Coding benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Beam 1.0 501B A23B
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 4.6	Beam 1.0 501B A23B	Leader
LiveBench coding	66.6%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LMArena WebDev	1523	1437	Claude Sonnet 4.6
AA Coding Index	63.0	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LiveCodeBench (Vals AI)	82.1%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI)	77.4%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI)	55.8%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Code migration (Vals AI)	39.9%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
ProgramBench (Vals AI)	0.5%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI)	57.3%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
SkillsBench (Vals AI)	49.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
SciCode	50.1%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run)	53.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Terminal-Bench	53.4%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
FrontierCode	24.3%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
WeirdML	66.1%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LMArena Text: coding	1503	1473	Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Text: software and IT	1491	1461	Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena WebDev: React	1512	1443	Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena WebDev: HTML	1527	1436	Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena WebDev: from an image	1529	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 18 boards here

IntelligenceDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards, none shared

Intelligence benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Beam 1.0 501B A23B
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 4.6	Beam 1.0 501B A23B	Leader
AA Intelligence Index	30.1	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Epoch Capabilities Index	152.8	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured

Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20 boards, none shared

Agentic work benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Beam 1.0 501B A23B
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 4.6	Beam 1.0 501B A23B	Leader
AA Agentic Index	31.8	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Design Arena: agents building web apps	1190	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps	1213	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Design Arena: agents building mobile apps	1212	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Design Arena: agents building Android apps	1202	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Design Arena: agents building Godot games	1226	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Design Arena: agents building games	1177	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LiveBench research	63.6%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LiveBench browser	68.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LiveBench long agentic	23.1%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Finance Agent (Vals AI)	51.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI)	25.8%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Legal Research Bench (Vals AI)	38.5%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI)	60.2%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
τ²-Bench Telecom	79.5%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
APEX-Agents	43.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
OSWorld 2.0	9.3%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
DeepResearch Bench	54.9%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
OSWorld	72.1%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Vending-Bench 2	$7,204	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 19 boards here

ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index30

Reasoning benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Beam 1.0 501B A23B
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 4.6	Beam 1.0 501B A23B	Leader
GPQA Diamond	85.6%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LiveBench reasoning	86.4%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
MMMU Pro (Vals AI)	83.6%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run)	87.5%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run)	33.6%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run)	87.4%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
ARC-AGI	86.5%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
ARC-AGI-2	60.4%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Chess puzzles	23.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Mystery game puzzles	16.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LMArena Text: hard prompts	1485	1442	Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Text: expert	1500	1447	Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Text: hard prompts in English	1493	1451	Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Vision: diagrams	1306	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LMArena Vision: homework	1311	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here

MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20

Math benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Beam 1.0 501B A23B
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 4.6	Beam 1.0 501B A23B	Leader
AIME	92.3%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
OTIS Mock AIME	85.8%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
ProofBench	45.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LMArena Text: math	1462	1459	Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Text: mathematical work	1483	1475	Claude Sonnet 4.6
Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here

KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index40

Knowledge benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Beam 1.0 501B A23B
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 4.6	Beam 1.0 501B A23B	Leader
MMLU Pro	87.3%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LegalBench (Vals AI)	82.1%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
CaseLaw (Vals AI)	64.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
CorpFin (Vals AI)	65.3%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
TaxEval (Vals AI)	77.1%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
MortgageTax (Vals AI)	67.7%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
MedQA (Vals AI)	92.1%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
SimpleQA Verified	35.5%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LMArena Text: science	1474	1430	Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare	1451	1376	Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Text: legal and government	1470	1433	Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Text: business and finance	1464	1430	Claude Sonnet 4.6
Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here

Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20

Web design benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Beam 1.0 501B A23B
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 4.6	Beam 1.0 501B A23B	Leader
Design Arena: websites	1285	1253	Claude Sonnet 4.6
Design Arena: UI components	1271	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Design Arena: game dev	1259	1222	Claude Sonnet 4.6
Design Arena: data viz	1278	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Design Arena: 3D	1234	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Design Arena: all code categories	1276	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Design Arena: SVG	1196	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Design Arena: ASCII art	1235	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LiveBench design	71.8%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured

GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index120

General benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Beam 1.0 501B A23B
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 4.6	Beam 1.0 501B A23B	Leader
LiveBench data analysis	76.1%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI)	62.5%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
SAGE (Vals AI)	46.6%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Vals Multimodal Index	60.6%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
IFBench	56.6%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Long context reasoning (AA-LCR)	80.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
DTBench	89.9%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LMCA	46.5%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
ExploitBench	23.6%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LMArena Text	1458	1425	Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Text: instruction following	1476	1430	Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Text: creative writing	1435	1390	Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Vision	1283	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LMArena Text: English	1472	1436	Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Text: non-English	1440	1413	Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Text: Chinese	1491	1424	Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Text: German	1428	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LMArena Text: Japanese	1420	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LMArena Text: Korean	1410	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LMArena Text: French	1465	1461	Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Text: Spanish	1464	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LMArena Text: Russian	1440	1412	Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Text: Polish	1443	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LMArena Text: multi-turn	1464	1414	Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Text: longer queries	1479	1429	Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Text: writing and language	1444	1400	Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Text: entertainment and media	1431	1399	Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Vision: English	1298	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LMArena Vision: Chinese	1307	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LMArena Vision: reading text	1296	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LMArena Vision: humor	1248	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LMArena Vision: recognizing things	1195	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LMArena Vision: creative writing	1272	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LMArena Document	1482	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 12 boards here

Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared

Image generation benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Beam 1.0 501B A23B
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 4.6	Beam 1.0 501B A23B	Leader
Neither model has a result on 5 boards here

What each workload costs

Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.

Chat turn

1K input + 500 output tokens

Claude Sonnet 4.6$0.011Fits in one request

Beam 1.0 501B A23B$0.0008Fits in one request

Beam 1.0 501B A23B costs less

Repository review

50K input + 3K output tokens

Claude Sonnet 4.6$0.195Fits in one request

Beam 1.0 501B A23B$0.018Fits in one request

Beam 1.0 501B A23B costs less

Agent loop

200K input + 10K output tokens

Claude Sonnet 4.6$0.750Fits in one request

Beam 1.0 501B A23B$0.070Fits in one request

Beam 1.0 501B A23B costs less

Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.

Specification differences

The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.

Specifications of Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Beam 1.0 501B A23B
Specification	Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.6	Reflection Beam 1.0 501B A23B
Maker	Anthropic	Reflection
Weights	No public weights listed	Open weights
Released	February 17, 2026	October 16, 2026
Context window	1M	1.05M
Input $/Mtok	$3.00	$0.30
Output $/Mtok	$15.00	$1.00
Coding index	57.8	33.8
Independent measurements behind it	2	1
Cost per solved task	$1.68	Not computable
Source	OpenRouter listing	OpenRouter listing

Questions

Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 better than Beam 1.0 501B A23B for coding?

Pick Claude Sonnet 4.6 for coding: it scores 57.8 on the Vibe Coding Index against 33.8 for Beam 1.0 501B A23B. Pick Beam 1.0 501B A23B when output tokens cost 15.0x less, or when the context window is larger, 1.05M against 1M tokens.

Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Beam 1.0 501B A23B?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs $3.00 per million input tokens and $15.00 per million output tokens; Beam 1.0 501B A23B costs $0.30 and $1.00. Cost per solved task is known for Claude Sonnet 4.6 only.

Which has the bigger context window, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Beam 1.0 501B A23B?

Beam 1.0 501B A23B, with 1.05M tokens against 1M.

How many benchmarks is the Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Beam 1.0 501B A23B comparison based on?

28 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Claude Sonnet 4.6's coding index rests on 2 independent benchmarks and Beam 1.0 501B A23B's on 1. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.

Decision reading

Which one for your work

Coding

Intelligence

Agentic work

Reasoning

Math

Knowledge

Web design

Long documents

Everyday cost

Cost per solved task

At a glance

Benchmark by benchmark

What each workload costs

Chat turn

Repository review

Agent loop

Specification differences

Questions

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