Claude Fable 5.1 vs Gemini 3.1 Ultra
Head-to-head technical comparison of intelligence, capabilities, and API pricing.
Which should you use?
Claude Fable 5.1 leads on the composite index by 4.4 points (96.9 vs 92.5).
Cost is the sharper difference: Gemini 3.1 Ultra is 2x the input price of Claude Fable 5.1 ($20 against $10 per 1M), so at volume the choice is usually decided by budget rather than benchmarks.
Pick Claude Fable 5.1 when
- Higher composite index — 96.9 against 92.5, a gap of 4.4 points.
- Ahead on Arena Elo by 24 points (1504 vs 1480), which is outside the board's published confidence intervals.
- Stronger on MMLU-Pro: 95.9% against 92.5%.
- Cheaper input tokens — $10 against $20 per 1M, so Gemini 3.1 Ultra costs 2x as much to feed.
- Better value per point of measured capability: $0.103 per index point against $0.216.
Pick Gemini 3.1 Ultra when
On these measures Gemini 3.1 Ultra does not lead Claude Fable 5.1 anywhere, so pick it only for reasons outside this table — an existing integration, a region, or a contract.
Value per point of measured capability, at list input pricing: Claude Fable 5.1 $0.103 · Gemini 3.1 Ultra $0.216 per index point. Run your own token mix through the token cost calculator — a comparison at list price ignores caching and batch discounts, which move real bills more than this gap does.
Where these numbers come from
Figures as of 2026-09-07. Arena Elo and pricing are read from the public board and each vendor's own pricing page; see the full leaderboard for all 34 models and which columns are measured rather than estimated, or the benchmark matrix for scores benchmark by benchmark.