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Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) vs Claude Haiku 3 vs Sonar

Claude Haiku 3 comes out ahead, 56 to 36 and 30 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.

  1. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen Plus Character (Japanese)

    Released Jan 2024

    36/100
    • ECI—
    • Price$0.50 / $1.40
    • Context8K
  2. Our pick

    Anthropic

    Claude Haiku 3

    Released Mar 13, 2024

    56/100
    • ECI118.4
    • Price$0.25 / $1.25
    • Context200K
  3. Perplexity

    Sonar

    Released Jan 1, 2024

    30/100
    • ECI—
    • Price$1.00 / $1.00
    • Context128K
01 — Verdict

Claude Haiku 3 is our pick

Claude Haiku 3 is the better all-round choice, scoring 56/100 against Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) (36) and Sonar (30). It leads on price, inputs & features and context window. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. 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 priceClaude Haiku 3Claude Haiku 3 $0.50 · Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) $0.725 · Sonar $1.00 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextClaude Haiku 3Claude Haiku 3 200,000 · Sonar 128,000 · Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) 8,192 tokens
  • Widest inputsClaude Haiku 3Qwen Plus Character (Japanese): Text · Claude Haiku 3: Text, Images, PDFs · Sonar: Text
  • Self-hostingNo open weightsAll three are available only through APIs
How the score is built
MeasureWeightQwen Plus Character (Japanese)Claude Haiku 3Sonar
Price50%576450
Inputs & features30%25600
Context window20%03224
Overall100%36/10056/10030/100

Left out because at least one model lacks the data: capability. The remaining weights were rescaled.

02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) vs Claude Haiku 3 vs Sonar specifications side by side
SpecificationQwen Plus Character (Japanese)Alibaba (Qwen)Claude Haiku 3AnthropicSonarPerplexity
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)—118.4—
ECI rank—#143 of 148—
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions—36.3%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics—1.8%—
Price per million tokens
Input$0.50$0.25 (best)$1.00
Output$1.40$1.25$1.00 (best)
Cached input———
Blended (3:1)$0.725$0.50 (best)$1.00
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Alibaba APIMedian of 2 providersOfficial Perplexity API
Limits
Context window8,192 tokens200,000 tokens (best)128,000 tokens
Max output512 tokens4,096 tokens (best)4,096 tokens (best)
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesNoYesNo
PDFsNoYesNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoNoNoNo
ReasoningNoNoNo
Tool callingYesYesNo
Structured outputNoNoNo
Availability
WeightsProprietaryProprietaryProprietary
API model IDqwen-plus-character-ja—sonar
API providers126 (best)
ReleasedJan 2024Mar 13, 2024Jan 1, 2024
Knowledge cutoffApr 2024Aug 31, 2023Sep 1, 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.

  • Qwen Plus Character (Japanese)$7.80
  • Claude Haiku 3$5.00
  • Sonar$12.00
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Qwen Plus Character (Japanese), Claude Haiku 3 or Sonar?

Claude Haiku 3 is the better all-round choice, scoring 56/100 against Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) (36) and Sonar (30). It leads on price, inputs & features and context window. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.

Which is cheaper, Qwen Plus Character (Japanese), Claude Haiku 3 or Sonar?

Claude Haiku 3 is cheaper at $0.25 input / $1.25 output per million tokens (median across 2 API providers). Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) costs $0.50 input / $1.40 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price); Sonar costs $1.00 input / $1.00 output per million tokens (official Perplexity API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.50 per million tokens for Claude Haiku 3 versus $0.725 for Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) (1.4× as much) and $1.00 for Sonar (2× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

There is no independent benchmark that covers all three models yet. Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) has not been scored yet, Claude Haiku 3 has an ECI of 118.4 and Sonar has not been scored yet.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Qwen Plus Character (Japanese), Claude Haiku 3 and Sonar yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. Test both on a sample of your own tasks. Note that Sonar does not support tool calling, which most coding agents need.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Haiku 3 has the largest context window at 200,000 tokens, against 128,000 for Sonar and 8,192 for Qwen Plus Character (Japanese). Maximum output per response: Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) up to 512, Claude Haiku 3 up to 4,096, Sonar up to 4,096 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) accepts text; Claude Haiku 3 accepts text, images and PDFs; Sonar accepts text. Claude Haiku 3 handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

No. Qwen Plus Character (Japanese), Claude Haiku 3 and Sonar are proprietary and only available through APIs and apps.

Which is newer?

Claude Haiku 3 is the newest, released Mar 13, 2024. Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) came out Jan 2024; Sonar came out Jan 1, 2024. Knowledge cutoff: Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) Apr 2024, Claude Haiku 3 Aug 31, 2023, Sonar Sep 1, 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.