ZMIME
Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Mistral Medium 3 vs Qwen3 Max

Claude Haiku 4.5 comes out ahead, 58 to 53 and 50 on our weighted score, though Mistral Medium 3 is 2.5× cheaper per token.

  1. Our pick

    Anthropic

    Claude Haiku 4.5

    Released Oct 15, 2025

    58/100
    • ECI142.4
    • Price$1.00 / $5.00
    • Context200K
    Full specs Remove Claude Haiku 4.5

  2. Mistral AI

    Mistral Medium 3

    Released May 7, 2025

    53/100
    • ECI134.1
    • Price$0.40 / $2.00
    • Context131K
    Full specs Remove Mistral Medium 3

  3. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3 Max

    Released Sep 23, 2025

    50/100
    • 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 58/100 against Mistral Medium 3 (53) and Qwen3 Max (50). It leads on inputs & features. Mistral Medium 3 wins on price. Qwen3 Max wins on context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityClaude Haiku 4.5Capabilities Index (ECI): Claude Haiku 4.5 142.4 · Qwen3 Max 142.4 · Mistral Medium 3 134.1
  • Lowest priceMistral Medium 3Mistral Medium 3 $0.80 · Claude Haiku 4.5 $2.00 · Qwen3 Max $2.40 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextQwen3 MaxQwen3 Max 262,144 · Claude Haiku 4.5 200,000 · Mistral Medium 3 131,072 tokens
  • Widest inputsClaude Haiku 4.5Claude Haiku 4.5: Text, Images, PDFs · Mistral Medium 3: Text, Images · Qwen3 Max: Text
  • Self-hostingNo open weightsAll three are available only through APIs
How the score is built
MeasureWeightClaude Haiku 4.5Mistral Medium 3Qwen3 Max
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%695868
Price25%365432
Inputs & features15%805025
Context window10%322437
Overall100%58/10053/10050/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Mistral Medium 3 vs Qwen3 Max specifications side by side
SpecificationClaude Haiku 4.5AnthropicMistral Medium 3Mistral AIQwen3 MaxAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)142.4 (best)134.1142.4
ECI rank#90 of 148 (best)#117 of 148#91 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions71.2%59.5%72.6% (best)
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics——19.0%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics66.7%32.2%73.3% (best)
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions13.2%—48.8% (best)
Price per million tokens
Input$1.00$0.40 (best)$1.20
Output$5.00$2.00 (best)$6.00
Cached input$0.10——
Blended (3:1)$2.00$0.80 (best)$2.40
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Anthropic APIOfficial Mistral APIOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window200,000 tokens131,072 tokens262,144 tokens (best)
Max output64,000 tokens131,072 tokens (best)65,536 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesYesYesNo
PDFsYesNoNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoNoNoNo
ReasoningYesNoNo
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputYesNoNo
Availability
WeightsProprietaryProprietaryProprietary
API model IDclaude-haiku-4-5mistral-medium-2505qwen3-max
API providers34 (best)516
ReleasedOct 15, 2025May 7, 2025Sep 23, 2025
Knowledge cutoffFeb 28, 2025May 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 4.5$20.00
  • Mistral Medium 3$8.00
  • Qwen3 Max$24.00
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Claude Haiku 4.5, Mistral Medium 3 or Qwen3 Max?

Claude Haiku 4.5 is the better all-round choice, scoring 58/100 against Mistral Medium 3 (53) and Qwen3 Max (50). It leads on inputs & features. Mistral Medium 3 wins on price. Qwen3 Max wins on context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Claude Haiku 4.5, Mistral Medium 3 or Qwen3 Max?

Mistral Medium 3 is cheaper at $0.40 input / $2.00 output per million tokens (official Mistral API price). Claude Haiku 4.5 costs $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 $0.80 per million tokens for Mistral Medium 3 versus $2.00 for Claude Haiku 4.5 (2.5× as much) and $2.40 for Qwen3 Max (3× as much).

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 Mistral Medium 3 134.1 (#117 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%, Mistral Medium 3 59.5%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3 Max 73.3%, Claude Haiku 4.5 66.7%, Mistral Medium 3 32.2%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Claude Haiku 4.5, Mistral Medium 3 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 4.5 and 131,072 for Mistral Medium 3. Maximum output per response: Claude Haiku 4.5 up to 64,000, Mistral Medium 3 up to 131,072, Qwen3 Max up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Claude Haiku 4.5 accepts text, images and PDFs; Mistral Medium 3 accepts text and images; Qwen3 Max accepts text. Claude Haiku 4.5 handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

No. Claude Haiku 4.5, Mistral Medium 3 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; Mistral Medium 3 came out May 7, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Claude Haiku 4.5 Feb 28, 2025, Mistral Medium 3 May 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

Related comparisons