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Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Qwen3 Max

Too close to call on our weighted score (Claude Haiku 4.5 58, Claude Sonnet 4.5 55, Qwen3 Max 50). The right pick depends on what you value most.

  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. Anthropic

    Claude Sonnet 4.5

    Released Sep 29, 2025

    55/100
    • ECI146.8
    • Price$3.00 / $15.00
    • Context200K
    Full specs Remove Claude Sonnet 4.5

  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

Too close to call

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 3 points (Claude Haiku 4.5 58/100, Claude Sonnet 4.5 55/100, Qwen3 Max 50/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Claude Sonnet 4.5 for raw capability, Claude Haiku 4.5 on price and Qwen3 Max for long inputs. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityClaude Sonnet 4.5Capabilities Index (ECI): Claude Sonnet 4.5 146.8 · Claude Haiku 4.5 142.4 · Qwen3 Max 142.4
  • Lowest priceClaude Haiku 4.5Claude Haiku 4.5 $2.00 · Qwen3 Max $2.40 · Claude Sonnet 4.5 $6.00 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextQwen3 MaxQwen3 Max 262,144 · Claude Haiku 4.5 200,000 · Claude Sonnet 4.5 200,000 tokens
  • Widest inputsClaude Haiku 4.5 and Claude Sonnet 4.5Claude Haiku 4.5: Text, Images, PDFs · Claude Sonnet 4.5: Text, Images, PDFs · Qwen3 Max: Text
  • Self-hostingNo open weightsAll three are available only through APIs
How the score is built
MeasureWeightClaude Haiku 4.5Claude Sonnet 4.5Qwen3 Max
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%697468
Price25%361332
Inputs & features15%808025
Context window10%323237
Overall100%58/10055/10050/100
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 Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Qwen3 Max specifications side by side
SpecificationClaude Haiku 4.5AnthropicClaude Sonnet 4.5AnthropicQwen3 MaxAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)142.4146.8 (best)142.4
ECI rank#90 of 148#64 of 148 (best)#91 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions71.2%82.3% (best)72.6%
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics—23.9% (best)19.0%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics66.7%77.8% (best)73.3%
SWE-bench VerifiedFixing real GitHub issues—71.3%—
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions13.2%30.7%48.8% (best)
Price per million tokens
Input$1.00 (best)$3.00$1.20
Output$5.00 (best)$15.00$6.00
Cached input$0.10 (best)$0.30—
Blended (3:1)$2.00 (best)$6.00$2.40
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Anthropic APIOfficial Anthropic APIOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window200,000 tokens200,000 tokens262,144 tokens (best)
Max output64,000 tokens64,000 tokens65,536 tokens (best)
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesYesYesNo
PDFsYesYesNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoNoNoNo
ReasoningYesYesNo
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputYesYesNo
Availability
WeightsProprietaryProprietaryProprietary
API model IDclaude-haiku-4-5claude-sonnet-4-5qwen3-max
API providers34 (best)2816
ReleasedOct 15, 2025Sep 29, 2025Sep 23, 2025
Knowledge cutoffFeb 28, 2025Jul 31, 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
  • Claude Sonnet 4.5$60.00
  • Qwen3 Max$24.00
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Claude Haiku 4.5, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Qwen3 Max?

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 3 points (Claude Haiku 4.5 58/100, Claude Sonnet 4.5 55/100, Qwen3 Max 50/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Claude Sonnet 4.5 for raw capability, Claude Haiku 4.5 on price and Qwen3 Max for long inputs. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Claude Haiku 4.5, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Qwen3 Max?

Claude Haiku 4.5 is cheaper at $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); Claude Sonnet 4.5 costs $3.00 input / $15.00 output per million tokens (official Anthropic API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $2.00 per million tokens for Claude Haiku 4.5 versus $2.40 for Qwen3 Max (1.2× as much) and $6.00 for Claude Sonnet 4.5 (3× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Claude Sonnet 4.5 146.8 (#64 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 (145.3–148.5 vs 139.5–144.3), so the gap is a real one. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Claude Sonnet 4.5 82.3%, Qwen3 Max 72.6%, Claude Haiku 4.5 71.2%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Claude Sonnet 4.5 77.8%, Qwen3 Max 73.3%, Claude Haiku 4.5 66.7%; SimpleQA Verified — Qwen3 Max 48.8%, Claude Sonnet 4.5 30.7%, 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 Max yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Claude Sonnet 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 200,000 for Claude Sonnet 4.5. Maximum output per response: Claude Haiku 4.5 up to 64,000, Claude Sonnet 4.5 up to 64,000, Qwen3 Max up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Claude Haiku 4.5 accepts text, images and PDFs; Claude Sonnet 4.5 accepts text, images and PDFs; 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, Claude Sonnet 4.5 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. Claude Sonnet 4.5 came out Sep 29, 2025; Qwen3 Max came out Sep 23, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Claude Haiku 4.5 Feb 28, 2025, Claude Sonnet 4.5 Jul 31, 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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