Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) vs Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct
Claude Haiku 4.5 comes out ahead, 61 to 45 and 40 on our weighted score, though Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) is 28× cheaper per token.
- Our pick
AnthropicClaude Haiku 4.5
61/100- ECI142.2
- Price$1.00 / $5.00
- Context200K
Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud)
45/100- ECI—
- Price$0.022 / $0.215
- Context262K
ByteDance SeedSeed-OSS-36B-Instruct
40/100- ECI—
- Price—
- Context524K
Claude Haiku 4.5 is our pick
Claude Haiku 4.5 is the better all-round choice, scoring 61/100 against Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) (45) and Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct (40). It leads on inputs & features. Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct wins on context window. The score weighs inputs & features 60%, context window 40%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.
- CapabilityNot enough dataNo independent benchmark covers every model here yet
- Lowest priceQwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud)Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) $0.07 · Claude Haiku 4.5 $2.00 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend) · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct unpriced
- Longest contextSeed-OSS-36B-InstructSeed-OSS-36B-Instruct 524,288 · Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) 262,144 · Claude Haiku 4.5 200,000 tokens
- Widest inputsClaude Haiku 4.5Claude Haiku 4.5: Text, Images, PDFs · Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud): Text, Images · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct: Text
- Self-hostingSeed-OSS-36B-InstructPublishes downloadable weights (Apache 2.0)
| Measure | Weight | Claude Haiku 4.5 | Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) | Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inputs & features | 60% | 80 | 50 | 35 |
| Context window | 40% | 32 | 37 | 49 |
| Overall | 100% | 61/100 | 45/100 | 40/100 |
Left out because at least one model lacks the data: capability and price. The remaining weights were rescaled.
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Claude Haiku 4.5Anthropic | Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud)Alibaba (Qwen) | Seed-OSS-36B-InstructByteDance Seed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | 142.2 | — | — |
| ECI rank | #102 of 165 | — | — |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | 71.2% | — | 71.5% (best) |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | 66.7% | — | 67.5% (best) |
| SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions | 13.2% | — | — |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $1.00 | $0.022 (best) | — |
| Output | $5.00 | $0.215 (best) | — |
| Cached input | $0.10 | — | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $2.00 | $0.07 (best) | — |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate | — |
| Price source | Official Anthropic API | Median of 1 providers | — |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 200,000 tokens | 262,144 tokens | 524,288 tokens (best) |
| Max output | 64,000 tokens | 32,768 tokens | 524,288 tokens (best) |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | Yes | Yes | No |
| PDFs | Yes | No | No |
| Audio | No | No | No |
| Video | No | No | No |
| Reasoning | Yes | No | Yes |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | Yes | No | No |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary | OpenApache 2.0 |
| API model ID | claude-haiku-4-5 | — | — |
| API providers | 48 (best) | 1 | — |
| Released | Oct 15, 2025 | Oct 15, 2025 | Aug 20, 2025 |
| Knowledge cutoff | Feb 28, 2025 | — | Jul 2024 |
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 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud)$0.65
- Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct—
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Claude Haiku 4.5, Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) or Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct?
Claude Haiku 4.5 is the better all-round choice, scoring 61/100 against Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) (45) and Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct (40). It leads on inputs & features. Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct wins on context window. The score weighs inputs & features 60%, context window 40%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.
Which is cheaper, Claude Haiku 4.5, Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) or Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct?
Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) is cheaper at $0.022 input / $0.215 output per million tokens (median across 1 API provider). 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 $0.07 per million tokens for Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) versus $2.00 for Claude Haiku 4.5 (28× as much). Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has no published per-token price.
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
There is no independent benchmark that covers all three models yet. Claude Haiku 4.5 has an ECI of 142.2, Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) has not been scored yet and Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has not been scored yet.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Claude Haiku 4.5, Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) and Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. Test both on a sample of your own tasks. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.
Which has the bigger context window?
Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has the largest context window at 524,288 tokens, against 262,144 for Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) and 200,000 for Claude Haiku 4.5. Maximum output per response: Claude Haiku 4.5 up to 64,000, Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) up to 32,768, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct up to 524,288 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Claude Haiku 4.5 accepts text, images and PDFs; Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) accepts text and images; Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct accepts text. Claude Haiku 4.5 handles the widest range of inputs.
Are any of these open source?
Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct publishes its weights (Apache 2.0) and can be self-hosted; Claude Haiku 4.5 and Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) is proprietary.
Which is newer?
Claude Haiku 4.5 is the newest, released Oct 15, 2025. Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) came out Oct 15, 2025; Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct came out Aug 20, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Claude Haiku 4.5 Feb 28, 2025, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct Jul 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 Nov 2, 2026.
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