Llama 4 Scout vs Claude Sonnet 5
On provider list prices, Llama 4 Scout costs $0.18 per million input tokens against $3 for Claude Sonnet 5: 16.7x apart. Output is $0.59 against $15 (25.4x). On Allocate both bill at list plus the 7% transaction fee.
Specifications and provider list prices from the Allocate catalog, checked 2026-07-08. Billed price is list plus the 7% transaction fee.
What the numbers say
Take 1,000,000 requests a month at 1,200 input and 350 output tokens each. That workload costs $422.50 a month on Llama 4 Scout and $8,850 on Claude Sonnet 5 at list: a gap of $8,428, or 20.9x.
Llama 4 Scout reads 1M tokens per request against 1M for Claude Sonnet 5, 1.0x the window. That decides which one can take whole documents without splitting them.
Choose Llama 4 Scout for
- Whole-document reasoning
- High-volume extraction
- Fine-tuning under the Llama 4 license
Choose Claude Sonnet 5 for
- Judgment calls with policy context
- Customer-facing writing
- Review and escalation flows
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Llama 4 Scout or Claude Sonnet 5?
Llama 4 Scout, on this workload shape. At list prices it is $0.18/$0.59 per million tokens in and out against $3/$15 for Claude Sonnet 5. Billed on Allocate: $0.19/$0.63 against $3.21/$16.05, list plus 7%.
Which has the bigger context window?
Llama 4 Scout: 1,048,576 tokens (1M) against 1,000,000 (1M) for Claude Sonnet 5.
Can I fine-tune Llama 4 Scout or Claude Sonnet 5?
Llama 4 Scout publishes open weights (Llama community) and can be fine-tuned on your own data. Claude Sonnet 5 is a closed model served over API; its weights are not available.
Related comparisons
Run the numbers on your workload
Or don’t choose. On Allocate a route name is the contract: point yours at one model today, swap to the other tomorrow, and compare them on your live traffic with per-token metering.