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Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Claude Haiku 3 vs Mixtral 8x7B vs Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

Claude Haiku 3 comes out ahead, 47 to 40 and 37 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.

  1. Our pick

    Anthropic

    Claude Haiku 3

    Released Mar 13, 2024

    47/100
    • ECI118.4
    • Price$0.25 / $1.25
    • Context200K
    Full specs Remove Claude Haiku 3

  2. Mistral AI

    Mixtral 8x7B

    Released Dec 11, 2023

    37/100
    • ECI118.5
    • Price$0.70 / $0.70
    • Context32K
    Full specs Remove Mixtral 8x7B

  3. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

    Released Sep 19, 2024

    40/100
    • ECI129.0
    • Price$1.40 / $5.60
    • Context131K
    Full specs Remove Qwen2.5 72B Instruct
01 — Verdict

Claude Haiku 3 is our pick

Claude Haiku 3 is the better all-round choice, scoring 47/100 against Qwen2.5 72B Instruct (40) and Mixtral 8x7B (37). It leads on price, inputs & features and context window. Qwen2.5 72B Instruct wins on capability. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityQwen2.5 72B InstructCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen2.5 72B Instruct 129.0 · Mixtral 8x7B 118.5 · Claude Haiku 3 118.4
  • Lowest priceClaude Haiku 3Claude Haiku 3 $0.50 · Mixtral 8x7B $0.70 · Qwen2.5 72B Instruct $2.45 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextClaude Haiku 3Claude Haiku 3 200,000 · Qwen2.5 72B Instruct 131,072 · Mixtral 8x7B 32,000 tokens
  • Widest inputsClaude Haiku 3Claude Haiku 3: Text, Images, PDFs · Mixtral 8x7B: Text · Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: Text
  • Self-hostingMixtral 8x7B and Qwen2.5 72B InstructPublishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightClaude Haiku 3Mixtral 8x7BQwen2.5 72B Instruct
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%383852
Price25%645731
Inputs & features15%602525
Context window10%32024
Overall100%47/10037/10040/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

Claude Haiku 3 vs Mixtral 8x7B vs Qwen2.5 72B Instruct specifications side by side
SpecificationClaude Haiku 3AnthropicMixtral 8x7BMistral AIQwen2.5 72B InstructAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)118.4118.5129.0 (best)
ECI rank#143 of 148#142 of 148#128 of 148 (best)
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions36.3%30.6%49.2% (best)
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics1.8%—8.1% (best)
Price per million tokens
Input$0.25 (best)$0.70$1.40
Output$1.25$0.70 (best)$5.60
Cached input———
Blended (3:1)$0.50 (best)$0.70$2.45
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceMedian of 2 providersOfficial Mistral APIOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window200,000 tokens (best)32,000 tokens131,072 tokens
Max output4,096 tokens32,000 tokens (best)8,192 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesYesNoNo
PDFsYesNoNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoNoNoNo
ReasoningNoNoNo
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputNoNoNo
Availability
WeightsProprietaryOpenOpen
API model ID—open-mixtral-8x7bqwen2-5-72b-instruct
API providers2 (best)11
ReleasedMar 13, 2024Dec 11, 2023Sep 19, 2024
Knowledge cutoffAug 31, 2023Jan 2024Apr 2024
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$5.00
  • Mixtral 8x7B$8.40
  • Qwen2.5 72B Instruct$25.20
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Claude Haiku 3, Mixtral 8x7B or Qwen2.5 72B Instruct?

Claude Haiku 3 is the better all-round choice, scoring 47/100 against Qwen2.5 72B Instruct (40) and Mixtral 8x7B (37). It leads on price, inputs & features and context window. Qwen2.5 72B Instruct wins on capability. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Claude Haiku 3, Mixtral 8x7B or Qwen2.5 72B Instruct?

Claude Haiku 3 is cheaper at $0.25 input / $1.25 output per million tokens (median across 2 API providers). Mixtral 8x7B costs $0.70 input / $0.70 output per million tokens (official Mistral API price); Qwen2.5 72B Instruct costs $1.40 input / $5.60 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.50 per million tokens for Claude Haiku 3 versus $0.70 for Mixtral 8x7B (1.4× as much) and $2.45 for Qwen2.5 72B Instruct (4.9× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen2.5 72B Instruct scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen2.5 72B Instruct 129.0 (#128 of 148), Mixtral 8x7B 118.5 (#142 of 148) and Claude Haiku 3 118.4 (#143 of 148). Their confidence ranges do not overlap (123.8–130.7 vs 111.3–121.3), so the gap is a real one. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen2.5 72B Instruct 49.2%, Claude Haiku 3 36.3%, Mixtral 8x7B 30.6%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Claude Haiku 3, Mixtral 8x7B and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen2.5 72B Instruct 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?

Claude Haiku 3 has the largest context window at 200,000 tokens, against 131,072 for Qwen2.5 72B Instruct and 32,000 for Mixtral 8x7B. Maximum output per response: Claude Haiku 3 up to 4,096, Mixtral 8x7B up to 32,000, Qwen2.5 72B Instruct up to 8,192 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Claude Haiku 3 accepts text, images and PDFs; Mixtral 8x7B accepts text; Qwen2.5 72B Instruct accepts text. Claude Haiku 3 handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Mixtral 8x7B and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Claude Haiku 3 is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Qwen2.5 72B Instruct is the newest, released Sep 19, 2024. Claude Haiku 3 came out Mar 13, 2024; Mixtral 8x7B came out Dec 11, 2023. Knowledge cutoff: Claude Haiku 3 Aug 31, 2023, Mixtral 8x7B Jan 2024, Qwen2.5 72B Instruct Apr 2024.

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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