Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Claude Sonnet 4.6
Fast, cheap, surprisingly smart. Meanwhile, claude sonnet 4.6: sonnet strikes back. the price-performance sweet spot.
Side-by-side
Specs
| Dimension | Claude Haiku 4.5 | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Anthropic |
| Released | 2025-10 | 2025-12 |
| Context window | 200K | ✓1M |
| Output max | 8K | ✓64K |
| Input /M | ✓$1.00 | $3.00 |
| Output /M | ✓$5.00 | $15.00 |
| Modalities | text, image | text, image |
| Open weights | no | no |
Scorecard
Dimension-by-dimension
Claude Haiku 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.6
reasoning
7.0
9.0
coding
7.0
9.0
writing
8.0
9.0
speed
10.0
7.0
value
10.0
9.0
Verdict
Which wins, by use case
| Use case | Winner | Why |
|---|---|---|
| coding | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | a clear edge on our weighted coding score |
| writing | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | a clear edge on our weighted writing score |
| chat | Claude Haiku 4.5 | a clear edge on our weighted chat score |
| agents | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | a clear edge on our weighted agents score |
| summarization | Claude Haiku 4.5 | a clear edge on our weighted summarization score |
| translation | Claude Haiku 4.5 | a coin flip on our weighted translation score |
| reasoning | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | a decisive lead on our weighted reasoning score |
| research | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | a clear edge on our weighted research score |
| vision and multimodal | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | a clear edge on our weighted vision score |
| Cheapest AI models for bulk workloads | Claude Haiku 4.5 | a decisive lead on our weighted cheap-bulk score |
Bottom line
Our take
Pick Claude Haiku 4.5 if you need: very fast, great cost profile.
Pick Claude Sonnet 4.6 if you need: excellent value per token, strong code generation.
At a 500M-input / 150M-output monthly volume, Claude Haiku 4.5 costs roughly $1250 vs Claude Sonnet 4.6 at $3750. Use our calculator to plug in your own numbers.
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