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Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Claude Haiku 3.5 vs Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Qwen3 Max

Claude Haiku 4.5 comes out ahead, 66 to 55 and 49 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.

  1. Anthropic

    Claude Haiku 3.5

    Released Oct 22, 2024

    49/100
    • ECI127.2
    • Price—
    • Context200K
    Full specs Remove Claude Haiku 3.5
  2. Our pick

    Anthropic

    Claude Haiku 4.5

    Released Oct 15, 2025

    66/100
    • ECI142.4
    • Price$1.00 / $5.00
    • Context200K
    Full specs Remove Claude Haiku 4.5

  3. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3 Max

    Released Sep 23, 2025

    55/100
    • ECI142.4
    • Price$1.20 / $6.00
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3 Max
01 — Verdict

Claude Haiku 4.5 is our pick

Claude Haiku 4.5 is the better all-round choice, scoring 66/100 against Qwen3 Max (55) and Claude Haiku 3.5 (49). It leads on inputs & features. Qwen3 Max wins on context window. The score weighs capability 67%, inputs & features 20%, context window 13%.

  • CapabilityClaude Haiku 4.5Capabilities Index (ECI): Claude Haiku 4.5 142.4 · Qwen3 Max 142.4 · Claude Haiku 3.5 127.2
  • Lowest priceClaude Haiku 4.5Claude Haiku 4.5 $2.00 · Qwen3 Max $2.40 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend) · Claude Haiku 3.5 unpriced
  • Longest contextQwen3 MaxQwen3 Max 262,144 · Claude Haiku 3.5 200,000 · Claude Haiku 4.5 200,000 tokens
  • Widest inputsClaude Haiku 3.5 and Claude Haiku 4.5Claude Haiku 3.5: Text, Images, PDFs · Claude Haiku 4.5: Text, Images, PDFs · Qwen3 Max: Text
  • Self-hostingNo open weightsAll three are available only through APIs
How the score is built
MeasureWeightClaude Haiku 3.5Claude Haiku 4.5Qwen3 Max
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)67%496968
Inputs & features20%608025
Context window13%323237
Overall100%49/10066/10055/100

Left out because at least one model lacks the data: price. The remaining weights were rescaled.

02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.

Claude Haiku 3.5 vs Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Qwen3 Max specifications side by side
SpecificationClaude Haiku 3.5AnthropicClaude Haiku 4.5AnthropicQwen3 MaxAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)127.2142.4 (best)142.4
ECI rank#134 of 148#90 of 148 (best)#91 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions38.1%71.2%72.6% (best)
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics——19.0%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics4.3%66.7%73.3% (best)
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions—13.2%48.8% (best)
Price per million tokens
Input—$1.00 (best)$1.20
Output—$5.00 (best)$6.00
Cached input—$0.10—
Blended (3:1)—$2.00 (best)$2.40
Long-context rate—Same rateSame rate
Price source—Official Anthropic APIOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window200,000 tokens200,000 tokens262,144 tokens (best)
Max output8,192 tokens64,000 tokens65,536 tokens (best)
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesYesYesNo
PDFsYesYesNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoNoNoNo
ReasoningNoYesNo
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputNoYesNo
Availability
WeightsProprietaryProprietaryProprietary
API model ID—claude-haiku-4-5qwen3-max
API providers—34 (best)16
ReleasedOct 22, 2024Oct 15, 2025Sep 23, 2025
Knowledge cutoffJul 31, 2024Feb 28, 2025Apr 2025
03 — Cost

What would a month cost?

Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.

  • Claude Haiku 3.5—
  • Claude Haiku 4.5$20.00
  • Qwen3 Max$24.00
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Claude Haiku 3.5, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Qwen3 Max?

Claude Haiku 4.5 is the better all-round choice, scoring 66/100 against Qwen3 Max (55) and Claude Haiku 3.5 (49). It leads on inputs & features. Qwen3 Max wins on context window. The score weighs capability 67%, inputs & features 20%, context window 13%.

Which is cheaper, Claude Haiku 3.5, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Qwen3 Max?

Claude Haiku 4.5 is cheaper at $1.00 input / $5.00 output per million tokens (official Anthropic API price). Qwen3 Max costs $1.20 input / $6.00 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $2.00 per million tokens for Claude Haiku 4.5 versus $2.40 for Qwen3 Max (1.2× as much). Claude Haiku 3.5 has no published per-token price.

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Claude Haiku 4.5 scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Claude Haiku 4.5 142.4 (#90 of 148), Qwen3 Max 142.4 (#91 of 148) and Claude Haiku 3.5 127.2 (#134 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (139.5–144.3 vs 140.0–144.6), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen3 Max 72.6%, Claude Haiku 4.5 71.2%, Claude Haiku 3.5 38.1%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3 Max 73.3%, Claude Haiku 4.5 66.7%, Claude Haiku 3.5 4.3%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Claude Haiku 3.5, Claude Haiku 4.5 and Qwen3 Max yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Claude Haiku 4.5 leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3 Max has the largest context window at 262,144 tokens, against 200,000 for Claude Haiku 3.5 and 200,000 for Claude Haiku 4.5. Maximum output per response: Claude Haiku 3.5 up to 8,192, Claude Haiku 4.5 up to 64,000, Qwen3 Max up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Claude Haiku 3.5 accepts text, images and PDFs; Claude Haiku 4.5 accepts text, images and PDFs; Qwen3 Max accepts text. Claude Haiku 3.5 handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

No. Claude Haiku 3.5, Claude Haiku 4.5 and Qwen3 Max are proprietary and only available through APIs and apps.

Which is newer?

Claude Haiku 4.5 is the newest, released Oct 15, 2025. Qwen3 Max came out Sep 23, 2025; Claude Haiku 3.5 came out Oct 22, 2024. Knowledge cutoff: Claude Haiku 3.5 Jul 31, 2024, Claude Haiku 4.5 Feb 28, 2025, Qwen3 Max Apr 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.

05 — Keep comparing

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