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Comparison · 2 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Qwen3.5 Plus vs Claude Haiku 4.5

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

  1. 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

  2. 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

  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 inputsQwen3.5 Plus: Text, Images, Video · Claude Haiku 4.5: Text, Images, PDFs
  • Self-hostingNo open weightsBoth are available only through APIs
How the score is built
MeasureWeightQwen3.5 PlusClaude Haiku 4.5
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%7469
Price25%5236
Inputs & features15%7080
Context window10%6032
Overall100%66/10058/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

Qwen3.5 Plus vs Claude Haiku 4.5 specifications side by side
SpecificationQwen3.5 PlusAlibaba (Qwen)Claude Haiku 4.5Anthropic
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)146.8 (best)142.4
ECI rank#65 of 148 (best)#90 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions84.9% (best)71.2%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics86.7% (best)66.7%
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions25.4% (best)13.2%
Price per million tokens
Input$0.40 (best)$1.00
Output$2.40 (best)$5.00
Cached input—$0.10
Blended (3:1)$0.90 (best)$2.00
Long-context rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Alibaba APIOfficial Anthropic API
Limits
Context window1,000,000 tokens (best)200,000 tokens
Max output65,536 tokens (best)64,000 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYes
ImagesYesYes
PDFsNoYes
AudioNoNo
VideoYesNo
ReasoningYesYes
Tool callingYesYes
Structured outputNoYes
Availability
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
API model IDqwen3.5-plusclaude-haiku-4-5
API providers1034 (best)
ReleasedFeb 16, 2026Oct 15, 2025
Knowledge cutoffApr 2025Feb 28, 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.

  • Qwen3.5 Plus$8.80
  • Claude Haiku 4.5$20.00
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

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

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, Qwen3.5 Plus or Claude Haiku 4.5?

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 Qwen3.5 Plus and Claude Haiku 4.5 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: Qwen3.5 Plus up to 65,536, Claude Haiku 4.5 up to 64,000 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Qwen3.5 Plus accepts text, images and video; Claude Haiku 4.5 accepts text, images and PDFs. They handle the same number of input types.

Are any of these open source?

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