Apertus 70B vs Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking
Too close to call on our weighted score (Claude Haiku 4.5 48, Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking 48, Apertus 70B 33). The right pick depends on what you value most.
Swiss AI
Apertus 70B
33/100- ECI—
- Price$0.82 / $2.42
- Context66K
AnthropicClaude Haiku 4.5
48/100- ECI142.4
- Price$1.00 / $5.00
- Context200K
Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking
48/100- ECI—
- Price$0.40 / $4.00
- Context131K
Too close to call
It is close. Our weighted score puts them within a point (Claude Haiku 4.5 48/100, Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking 48/100, Apertus 70B 33/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Apertus 70B on price and Claude Haiku 4.5 for long inputs. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.
- CapabilityNot enough dataNo independent benchmark covers every model here yet
- Lowest priceApertus 70BApertus 70B $1.22 · Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking $1.30 · Claude Haiku 4.5 $2.00 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
- Longest contextClaude Haiku 4.5Claude Haiku 4.5 200,000 · Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking 131,072 · Apertus 70B 65,536 tokens
- Widest inputsClaude Haiku 4.5Apertus 70B: Text · Claude Haiku 4.5: Text, Images, PDFs · Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking: Text, Images
- Self-hostingApertus 70B and Qwen3 VL 235B A22B ThinkingPublishes downloadable weights (Apache-2.0)
| Measure | Weight | Apertus 70B | Claude Haiku 4.5 | Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | 50% | 46 | 36 | 44 |
| Inputs & features | 30% | 25 | 80 | 70 |
| Context window | 20% | 12 | 32 | 24 |
| Overall | 100% | 33/100 | 48/100 | 48/100 |
Left out because at least one model lacks the data: capability. The remaining weights were rescaled.
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Apertus 70BSwiss AI | Claude Haiku 4.5Anthropic | Qwen3 VL 235B A22B ThinkingAlibaba (Qwen) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | — | 142.4 | — |
| ECI rank | — | #90 of 148 | — |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | — | 71.2% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | — | 66.7% | — |
| SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions | — | 13.2% | — |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $0.82 | $1.00 | $0.40 (best) |
| Output | $2.42 (best) | $5.00 | $4.00 |
| Cached input | — | $0.10 | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $1.22 (best) | $2.00 | $1.30 |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate | Same rate |
| Price source | Median of 3 providers | Official Anthropic API | Median of 9 providers |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 65,536 tokens | 200,000 tokens (best) | 131,072 tokens |
| Max output | 8,192 tokens | 64,000 tokens (best) | 32,768 tokens |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | No | Yes | Yes |
| PDFs | No | Yes | No |
| Audio | No | No | No |
| Video | No | No | No |
| Reasoning | No | Yes | Yes |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | No | Yes | Yes |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | OpenApache-2.0 | Proprietary | Open |
| API model ID | — | claude-haiku-4-5 | — |
| API providers | 3 | 34 (best) | 9 |
| Released | Sep 2, 2025 | Oct 15, 2025 | Sep 23, 2025 |
| Knowledge cutoff | Sep 2025 | Feb 28, 2025 | Mar 31, 2025 |
What would a month cost?
Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.
- Apertus 70B$13.04
- Claude Haiku 4.5$20.00
- Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking$12.00
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Apertus 70B, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking?
It is close. Our weighted score puts them within a point (Claude Haiku 4.5 48/100, Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking 48/100, Apertus 70B 33/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Apertus 70B on price and Claude Haiku 4.5 for long inputs. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.
Which is cheaper, Apertus 70B, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking?
Apertus 70B is cheaper at $0.82 input / $2.42 output per million tokens (median across 3 API providers). Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking costs $0.40 input / $4.00 output per million tokens (median across 9 API providers); Claude Haiku 4.5 costs $1.00 input / $5.00 output per million tokens (official Anthropic API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $1.22 per million tokens for Apertus 70B versus $1.30 for Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking (1.1× as much) and $2.00 for Claude Haiku 4.5 (1.6× as much).
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
There is no independent benchmark that covers all three models yet. Apertus 70B has not been scored yet, Claude Haiku 4.5 has an ECI of 142.4 and Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking has not been scored yet.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Apertus 70B, Claude Haiku 4.5 and Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. Test both on a sample of your own tasks. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.
Which has the bigger context window?
Claude Haiku 4.5 has the largest context window at 200,000 tokens, against 131,072 for Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking and 65,536 for Apertus 70B. Maximum output per response: Apertus 70B up to 8,192, Claude Haiku 4.5 up to 64,000, Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking up to 32,768 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Apertus 70B accepts text; Claude Haiku 4.5 accepts text, images and PDFs; Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking accepts text and images. Claude Haiku 4.5 handles the widest range of inputs.
Are any of these open source?
Apertus 70B and Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking publishes its weights (Apache-2.0) and can be self-hosted; Claude Haiku 4.5 is proprietary.
Which is newer?
Claude Haiku 4.5 is the newest, released Oct 15, 2025. Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking came out Sep 23, 2025; Apertus 70B came out Sep 2, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Apertus 70B Sep 2025, Claude Haiku 4.5 Feb 28, 2025, Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking Mar 31, 2025.
How do you decide the winner?
Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Oct 4, 2026.
