Skip to content
optera

Cost and performance comparison

Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Claude 3 Haiku

Model AAnthropic

Claude Haiku 4.5

Capability score (editorial)82/100
Cost / 1M Tokens
$2.20
70% in · 30% out mix
≈ $2.42 for the same text, tokenizer included
Value Index (score÷cost)
33.9
Higher = better value
Speed
97/100
Context
200K
Tier
Fast Tier

List price from the Anthropic pricing page, verified October 12, 2026.

Its tokenizer produces about 10% more tokens than OpenAI's for the same text, so the real cost runs higher than the list price suggests. This is an estimate: the tokenizer has not been measured yet.

Check the source

How we verify prices

Model BAnthropic

Claude 3 Haiku

Capability score (editorial)70/100
Cost / 1M Tokens
$0.55
70% in · 30% out mix
≈ $0.61 for the same text, tokenizer included
Value Index (score÷cost)
115.7
Higher = better value
Speed
98/100
Context
200K
Tier
Fast Tier

Last list price before the model was retired.

Its tokenizer produces about 10% more tokens than OpenAI's for the same text, so the real cost runs higher than the list price suggests. This is an estimate: the tokenizer has not been measured yet.

How we verify prices

In-depth analysis

Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Claude 3 Haiku: Detailed Comparison

Claude Haiku 4.5 is Anthropic's lightweight-tier language model with a 200K-token context window, excelling at data extraction. Claude 3 Haiku from Anthropic is a lightweight-tier model supporting 200K tokens in context, with standout performance in data extraction.

Claude Haiku 4.5 costs 4.0x what Claude 3 Haiku does for the same text. That is a steep premium, and it buys a 33-point lead on combined coding and reasoning. Whether that trade is worth it depends entirely on how much of your traffic actually needs the harder model — for most workloads the honest answer is a small fraction of it, which is an argument for routing rather than for picking one. Claude Haiku 4.5 is priced at $1.00/M input tokens and $5.00/M output tokens. Claude 3 Haiku costs $0.25/M input and $1.25/M output.

On iOPTERA's editorial scores, Claude Haiku 4.5 leads with 83/100 for coding and 82/100 for reasoning, against Claude 3 Haiku's 62/100 and 70/100.

Capability breakdown

Across the five core benchmark categories, here is how Claude Haiku 4.5 and Claude 3 Haiku stack up head to head:

coding
83
62
reasoning
82
70
data extraction
91
84
creative tasks
82
74
vision/multimodal
80
71

Best model by task

  • coding: Claude Haiku 4.5 wins with 83/100
  • reasoning: Claude Haiku 4.5 wins with 82/100
  • data extraction: Claude Haiku 4.5 wins with 91/100
  • creative tasks: Claude Haiku 4.5 wins with 82/100
  • vision/multimodal: Claude Haiku 4.5 wins with 80/100

Estimated monthly cost at scale

For 10M + 2M tokens of text a month (counted the way OpenAI's tokenizer counts), Claude Haiku 4.5 runs about $22.00 while Claude 3 Haiku runs about $5.50 — Claude 3 Haiku saves roughly $16.50 (75%) every month.

What actually decides it

Both models come from Anthropic, so they share a tokenizer, an API surface, and a billing account. Switching between them is a model-string change and nothing else — no new SDK, no re-tokenizing your prompts to re-estimate cost, no second vendor to onboard. That makes routing between them far cheaper to implement than a cross-vendor split.

These are the same lab's model at the same tier, 19 months apart — so this is an upgrade question, not a choice between alternatives. Claude Haiku 4.5 is the current entry; Claude 3 Haiku is here because plenty of production traffic still runs on it. If you are starting something new there is little reason to pick the older one, and if you are already on it the question is whether the migration cost is worth the gain.

Context is effectively a tie: 200K against 200K. Neither model unlocks a document size the other cannot handle, so this axis should not enter the decision. If you were hoping context would break the tie for you, it will not.

Throughput is close enough to ignore — 98/100 versus 97/100. Neither model will feel noticeably quicker in an interactive product, so latency is not a reason to choose between them.

One practical asymmetry: Claude Haiku 4.5 offers a batch API at 50% off standard rates, and Claude 3 Haiku does not. For anything that does not need an answer immediately — nightly enrichment, backfills, evaluation runs — that discount can be worth more than the difference in list price, and it is easy to overlook when comparing headline rates.

Claude Haiku 4.5 is 4.0x the price of Claude 3 Haiku. Reserve it for the requests that actually need it and route the rest to Claude 3 Haiku — that hybrid beats either model used alone on cost per useful answer.

What you actually pay

The list price is only the start. Prompt caching, batch processing and long prompts change the bill, and each provider sets them differently. Prices per 1M tokens.

Pricing terms beyond the list price, per 1M tokens
Pricing termClaude Haiku 4.5Claude 3 Haiku
List price (input / output)$1.00 / $5.00$0.25 / $1.25
Cached input$0.1010% of the input price—
Batch API50% off input and output—
Long promptsNo surcharge across the 200K window—
Input with 80% cache hits$0.28—

The last row assumes 80% of input tokens are read from the cache, as in a chat app that re-sends a long system prompt or RAG over the same documents. Cache-write and storage charges are not included.

Claude also bills cache writes: 1.25× the input price for a 5-minute cache, 2× for one hour.

Checked on October 8, 2026 against the pricing pages of Anthropic.

Capability scores

iOPTERA editorial scores across 5 categories — informed by public benchmarks, not measured by us

CategoryClaude HaikuClaude 3Winner

Coding

83
62
A

Reasoning

82
70
A

Extraction

91
84
A

Creative

82
74
A

Vision

80
71
A
Claude Haiku 4.5: 5 wins
Claude 3 Haiku: 0 wins
Claude Haiku 4.5 leads overall

Speed Score

97/100vs98/100
ClaudeClaude

Context Window

200Kvs200K
ClaudeClaude

What Is a Token?

Models don't read words — they process tokens.

A token is roughly 4 characters of English text (~¾ of a word). Your API bill is priced per million tokens — understanding this directly reduces your costs.

Short phrase

"Hello, world!"

4 tokens
Claude Haiku 4.5
$0.44
Claude 3 Haiku
$0.11

Business email

One typical email (~200 words)

~270 tokens
Claude Haiku 4.5
$29.70
Claude 3 Haiku
$7.43

Code file

50-line Python script

~400 tokens
Claude Haiku 4.5
$44.00
Claude 3 Haiku
$11.00

Prices shown are for 100,000 runs of each workload — one run costs a fraction of a cent on both Claude Haiku 4.5 and Claude 3 Haiku, so the number only becomes meaningful at production volume. Input tokens only; add your output volume in the calculator below.

How to check your token usage

response.usage.total_tokens

Every API response includes a usage object. Sum total_tokens across all calls to get your monthly figure, then use the calculator below.

Your Cost Calculator

Enter your actual monthly token usage to see real savings

Quick Presets

30M tokens
Prompt 70%Completion 30%

Claude Haiku 4.5

$72.60/mo

$871.20/yr

$1.00/M input$5.00/M output
Cheaper

Claude 3 Haiku

$18.15/mo

$217.80/yr

$0.25/M input$1.25/M output

Annual Savings

$653.40 saved per year

Claude 3 Haiku cheaper · $54.45/mo

Related Comparisons

Explore similar model pairs to find your best fit

Claude HaikuvsClaude Sonnet

$1.00 · $2.00/M input

Claude HaikuvsGPT-5.6 Luna

$1.00 · $0.20/M input

Claude HaikuvsGPT-4o Mini

$1.00 · $0.15/M input

Claude HaikuvsGPT-6 Luna

$1.00 · $0.10/M input

Claude HaikuvsClaude Haiku

$1.00 · $0.10/M input

Claude HaikuvsGemini 1.5

$1.00 · $0.075/M input