Compare / Claude Opus 4.1 vs Llama 3.2 3B Instruct

Claude Opus 4.1 vs Llama 3.2 3B Instruct

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 15 results on 3 sources that measured both models.

Claude Opus 4.1
Anthropic · profile
Llama 3.2 3B Instruct
Meta · profile
Results compared
15
Shared sources
3

Claude Opus 4.1 or Llama 3.2 3B Instruct? The short answer

  • Llama 3.2 3B Instruct is cheaper: $0.12 against $30.00 per million tokens, 250 times less.
  • Claude Opus 4.1 scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 22.8 against 5.7.
  • On our business benchmarks, Claude Opus 4.1 ranks higher for reasoning and knowledge and writing.

At a glance

Claude Opus 4.1Llama 3.2 3B Instruct
Price per million tokens$15.00 in · $75.00 out$0.050 in · $0.33 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$30.00$0.12
Cheapest host, blended–$0.12 (Parasail, BF16)
Intelligence Index22.85.7
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second––
Context window200,000 tokens131,072 tokens
WeightsClosedOpen
Developer based inthe USthe US

Prices are the developer's list price where we have read it, otherwise the typical host on OpenRouter; see every model's price. Intelligence and speed from Artificial Analysis.

Which is better for what

Each model's rank among models available today, for each kind of work, from our own benchmarks and licensed sources. The better rank is in green.

Use caseClaude Opus 4.1Llama 3.2 3B Instruct
Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls not measured 158 of 161
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 98 of 195 183 of 195
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 31 of 187 187 of 187
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 104 of 153 not measured

Every shared result

BenchmarkMetricClaude Opus 4.1Llama 3.2 3B Instruct
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedBusiness, management and financeArena rating 1,4471,146
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedCreative writingArena rating 1,4451,145
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedExpert promptsArena rating 1,4821,179
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedInstruction followingArena rating 1,4581,146
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedOverallArena rating 1,4501,167
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedWriting, literature and languageArena rating 1,4461,143
Artificial AnalysisreportedArtificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score 22.85.70
Artificial AnalysisreportedGPQA Diamond% of questions 80.9%25.5%
Artificial AnalysisreportedHumanity's Last Exam% of questions 12.5%5.3%
Artificial AnalysisreportedIFBench% of instructions 55.4%26.2%
Artificial AnalysisreportedLong-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions 76.0%4.3%
Artificial AnalysisreportedΤ²-bench telecom% of tasks 71.4%21.1%
UGI LeaderboardreportedRequested-length error% off the requested word count 3.0%31.0%
UGI LeaderboardreportedStyle adherencescore from 0 to 1 0.380.36
UGI LeaderboardreportedWriting scorescore out of 100 69.910.4

Bold green marks the better value on that metric. Where a source reports ranges that overlap, the difference may not be meaningful; see the benchmark page for ranges.

Quick answers

Is Claude Opus 4.1 better than Llama 3.2 3B Instruct?

It depends on the task. Among models available today, on our benchmarks and licensed sources, Claude Opus 4.1 ranks higher for reasoning and knowledge and writing.

Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.1 or Llama 3.2 3B Instruct?

Llama 3.2 3B Instruct costs $0.12 per million tokens (three input to one output), against $30.00 for Claude Opus 4.1.

Run Claude Opus 4.1 and Llama 3.2 3B Instruct on your own prompt

Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.