Last verified 2026-02-11 (left) · 2025-11-26 (right)

Claude Opus 4.6 vs Gemini 3 Pro Preview — Pricing & Capability Comparison

Claude Opus 4.6 charges $5.00 per million input tokens and $25.00 per million output tokens. Gemini 3 Pro Preview comes in at $2.00 / $12.00. Context windows span 200K vs 2M tokens respectively.

TL;DR — Quick Comparison

✓Gemini 3 Pro Preview is cheaper overall: $14.00 per 1M tokens (in+out) vs $30.00 for Claude Opus 4.6 — saves $16.00 per 1M tokens
✓Input pricing: Claude Opus 4.6 $5.00/1M vs Gemini 3 Pro Preview $2.00/1M
✓Output pricing: Claude Opus 4.6 $25.00/1M vs Gemini 3 Pro Preview $12.00/1M
✓Context window: Gemini 3 Pro Preview offers more (2M vs 200K)
✓Use our calculator below to estimate costs for your specific usage pattern

Input price (per 1M)

Claude Opus 4.6

$5.00

Gemini 3 Pro Preview

$2.00

Gemini 3 Pro Preview leads here

Output price (per 1M)

Claude Opus 4.6

$25.00

Gemini 3 Pro Preview

$12.00

Gemini 3 Pro Preview leads here

Context window

Claude Opus 4.6

200,000 tokens

Gemini 3 Pro Preview

2,000,000 tokens

Gemini 3 Pro Preview leads here

Cached input

Claude Opus 4.6

$0.500

Gemini 3 Pro Preview

$0.200

Gemini 3 Pro Preview leads here

Which one should you choose?

Skip the spreadsheet if you just need the practical takeaway. Use these rules when deciding between Claude Opus 4.6 and Gemini 3 Pro Preview.

Choose Gemini 3 Pro Preview if input tokens dominate your bill

Gemini 3 Pro Preview has the lower input rate, which usually matters most for chat, RAG, classification, and long-prompt workflows where prompt volume stays much larger than generated output.

Choose Gemini 3 Pro Preview if you generate long answers

Gemini 3 Pro Preview is cheaper on output tokens, so it tends to win for report generation, coding assistance, reasoning traces, and any workflow where completions are long.

Choose Gemini 3 Pro Preview if context size is the blocker

Gemini 3 Pro Preview offers the larger published context window, which is more important than small pricing differences when you need to fit large files, long chats, or multi-document prompts into one request.

Cost comparison for 10K-token workloads

Side-by-side pricing for identical workloads (10,000 total tokens per request) across different distributions.

Scenario	Claude Opus 4.6	Gemini 3 Pro Preview	Claude Opus 4.6 cached	Gemini 3 Pro Preview cached
Balanced conversation 50% input · 50% output	$0.150	$0.0700	$0.128	$0.0610
Input-heavy workflow 80% input · 20% output	$0.0900	$0.0400	$0.0540	$0.0256
Generation heavy 30% input · 70% output	$0.190	$0.0900	$0.177	$0.0846
Cached system prompt 90% cached input · 10% fresh output	$0.0700	$0.0300	$0.0295	$0.0138

Frequently asked questions

Which is cheaper: Claude Opus 4.6 or Gemini 3 Pro Preview?

Gemini 3 Pro Preview is cheaper for input tokens at $2.00 per 1M tokens compared to $5.00. For output, Gemini 3 Pro Preview costs $12.00 per 1M tokens versus $25.00 for Claude Opus 4.6.

What is the cost per 1M tokens for Claude Opus 4.6?

Claude Opus 4.6 pricing: $5.00 per 1M input tokens and $25.00 per 1M output tokens. Context window: 200,000 tokens.

What is the cost per 1M tokens for Gemini 3 Pro Preview?

Gemini 3 Pro Preview pricing: $2.00 per 1M input tokens and $12.00 per 1M output tokens. Context window: 2,000,000 tokens.

How much does it cost per 1K tokens?

Per 1K tokens: Claude Opus 4.6 costs $0.0050 input / $0.0250 output. Gemini 3 Pro Preview costs $0.0020 input / $0.0120 output. This is useful for calculating small-scale usage costs.

Which model supports a larger context window?

Gemini 3 Pro Preview offers 2,000,000 tokens (2M) versus 200K for Claude Opus 4.6.

What is the estimated monthly cost for typical usage?

For a typical workload of 10M input + 2M output tokens per month: Claude Opus 4.6 would cost approximately $100.00, while Gemini 3 Pro Preview would cost $44.00. Gemini 3 Pro Preview is more economical for this usage pattern.

Do these models support prompt caching?

Claude Opus 4.6 supports prompt caching at $0.500 per 1M cached tokens, reducing costs for repeated context by up to 90%. Gemini 3 Pro Preview supports caching at $0.200 per 1M tokens, saving up to 90%.

Which model is best for my use case?

Choose Gemini 3 Pro Preview for cost-sensitive applications with high input volume. Choose Gemini 3 Pro Preview if you need 2M context for long documents or conversations. Consider prompt caching if you have repeated context. Use our token calculator to model your specific usage pattern.