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Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Qwen3.5 Plus vs Qwen3 Max

Qwen3.5 Plus comes out ahead, 66 to 58 and 50 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.

  1. 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. Our pick

    Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.5 Plus

    Released Feb 16, 2026

    66/100
    • ECI146.8
    • Price$0.40 / $2.40
    • Context1M
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.5 Plus

  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

Qwen3.5 Plus is our pick

Qwen3.5 Plus is the better all-round choice, scoring 66/100 against Claude Haiku 4.5 (58) and Qwen3 Max (50). It leads on capability, price and context window. Claude Haiku 4.5 wins on inputs & features. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityQwen3.5 PlusCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 Plus 146.8 · Claude Haiku 4.5 142.4 · Qwen3 Max 142.4
  • Lowest priceQwen3.5 PlusQwen3.5 Plus $0.90 · Claude Haiku 4.5 $2.00 · Qwen3 Max $2.40 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextQwen3.5 PlusQwen3.5 Plus 1,000,000 · Qwen3 Max 262,144 · Claude Haiku 4.5 200,000 tokens
  • Widest inputsClaude Haiku 4.5 and Qwen3.5 PlusClaude Haiku 4.5: Text, Images, PDFs · Qwen3.5 Plus: Text, Images, Video · Qwen3 Max: Text
  • Self-hostingNo open weightsAll three are available only through APIs
How the score is built
MeasureWeightClaude Haiku 4.5Qwen3.5 PlusQwen3 Max
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%697468
Price25%365232
Inputs & features15%807025
Context window10%326037
Overall100%58/10066/10050/100
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 Qwen3.5 Plus vs Qwen3 Max specifications side by side
SpecificationClaude Haiku 4.5AnthropicQwen3.5 PlusAlibaba (Qwen)Qwen3 MaxAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)142.4146.8 (best)142.4
ECI rank#90 of 148#65 of 148 (best)#91 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions71.2%84.9% (best)72.6%
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics——19.0%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics66.7%86.7% (best)73.3%
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions13.2%25.4%48.8% (best)
Price per million tokens
Input$1.00$0.40 (best)$1.20
Output$5.00$2.40 (best)$6.00
Cached input$0.10——
Blended (3:1)$2.00$0.90 (best)$2.40
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Anthropic APIOfficial Alibaba APIOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window200,000 tokens1,000,000 tokens (best)262,144 tokens
Max output64,000 tokens65,536 tokens (best)65,536 tokens (best)
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesYesYesNo
PDFsYesNoNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoNoYesNo
ReasoningYesYesNo
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputYesNoNo
Availability
WeightsProprietaryProprietaryProprietary
API model IDclaude-haiku-4-5qwen3.5-plusqwen3-max
API providers34 (best)1016
ReleasedOct 15, 2025Feb 16, 2026Sep 23, 2025
Knowledge cutoffFeb 28, 2025Apr 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
  • Qwen3.5 Plus$8.80
  • Qwen3 Max$24.00
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Claude Haiku 4.5, Qwen3.5 Plus or Qwen3 Max?

Qwen3.5 Plus is the better all-round choice, scoring 66/100 against Claude Haiku 4.5 (58) and Qwen3 Max (50). It leads on capability, price and context window. Claude Haiku 4.5 wins on inputs & features. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Claude Haiku 4.5, Qwen3.5 Plus or Qwen3 Max?

Qwen3.5 Plus is cheaper at $0.40 input / $2.40 output per million tokens (official Alibaba 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 $0.90 per million tokens for Qwen3.5 Plus versus $2.00 for Claude Haiku 4.5 (2.2× as much) and $2.40 for Qwen3 Max (2.7× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen3.5 Plus scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 Plus 146.8 (#65 of 148), Claude Haiku 4.5 142.4 (#90 of 148) and Qwen3 Max 142.4 (#91 of 148). Their confidence ranges do not overlap (144.6–148.1 vs 139.5–144.3), so the gap is a real one. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen3.5 Plus 84.9%, Qwen3 Max 72.6%, Claude Haiku 4.5 71.2%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3.5 Plus 86.7%, Qwen3 Max 73.3%, Claude Haiku 4.5 66.7%; SimpleQA Verified — Qwen3 Max 48.8%, Qwen3.5 Plus 25.4%, Claude Haiku 4.5 13.2%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Claude Haiku 4.5, Qwen3.5 Plus and Qwen3 Max yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen3.5 Plus 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?

Qwen3.5 Plus has the largest context window at 1,000,000 tokens, against 262,144 for Qwen3 Max and 200,000 for Claude Haiku 4.5. Maximum output per response: Claude Haiku 4.5 up to 64,000, Qwen3.5 Plus up to 65,536, Qwen3 Max up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Claude Haiku 4.5 accepts text, images and PDFs; Qwen3.5 Plus accepts text, images and video; 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, Qwen3.5 Plus and Qwen3 Max are proprietary and only available through APIs and apps.

Which is newer?

Qwen3.5 Plus is the newest, released Feb 16, 2026. Claude Haiku 4.5 came out Oct 15, 2025; Qwen3 Max came out Sep 23, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Claude Haiku 4.5 Feb 28, 2025, Qwen3.5 Plus Apr 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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