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Comparison · 2 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Qwen3.5 Plus

Qwen3.5 Plus comes out ahead, 66 to 58 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. Add a model

    Make it a three-way comparison.

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). 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
  • Lowest priceQwen3.5 PlusQwen3.5 Plus $0.90 · Claude Haiku 4.5 $2.00 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextQwen3.5 PlusQwen3.5 Plus 1,000,000 · Claude Haiku 4.5 200,000 tokens
  • Widest inputsSame inputsClaude Haiku 4.5: Text, Images, PDFs · Qwen3.5 Plus: Text, Images, Video
  • Self-hostingNo open weightsBoth are available only through APIs
How the score is built
MeasureWeightClaude Haiku 4.5Qwen3.5 Plus
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%6974
Price25%3652
Inputs & features15%8070
Context window10%3260
Overall100%58/10066/100
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 specifications side by side
SpecificationClaude Haiku 4.5AnthropicQwen3.5 PlusAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)142.4146.8 (best)
ECI rank#90 of 148#65 of 148 (best)
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions71.2%84.9% (best)
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics66.7%86.7% (best)
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions13.2%25.4% (best)
Price per million tokens
Input$1.00$0.40 (best)
Output$5.00$2.40 (best)
Cached input$0.10—
Blended (3:1)$2.00$0.90 (best)
Long-context rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Anthropic APIOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window200,000 tokens1,000,000 tokens (best)
Max output64,000 tokens65,536 tokens (best)
Inputs and features
TextYesYes
ImagesYesYes
PDFsYesNo
AudioNoNo
VideoNoYes
ReasoningYesYes
Tool callingYesYes
Structured outputYesNo
Availability
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
API model IDclaude-haiku-4-5qwen3.5-plus
API providers34 (best)10
ReleasedOct 15, 2025Feb 16, 2026
Knowledge cutoffFeb 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 4.5$20.00
  • Qwen3.5 Plus$8.80
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

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

Qwen3.5 Plus is the better all-round choice, scoring 66/100 against Claude Haiku 4.5 (58). 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 or Qwen3.5 Plus?

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). 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).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen3.5 Plus scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 Plus 146.8 (#65 of 148) and Claude Haiku 4.5 142.4 (#90 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%, Claude Haiku 4.5 71.2%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3.5 Plus 86.7%, Claude Haiku 4.5 66.7%; SimpleQA Verified — 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 and Qwen3.5 Plus 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. Both 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 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 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. They handle the same number of input types.

Are any of these open source?

No. Claude Haiku 4.5 and Qwen3.5 Plus 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. Knowledge cutoff: Claude Haiku 4.5 Feb 28, 2025, Qwen3.5 Plus 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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