Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Claude Opus 4.6
Claude Haiku 4.5 (2025) and Claude Opus 4.6 (2026) are frontier reasoning models from Anthropic. Claude Haiku 4.5 ships a 200k-token context window, while Claude Opus 4.6 ships a 1M-token context window. On SWE-bench Verified, Claude Opus 4.6 leads by 7.5 pts. On pricing, Claude Haiku 4.5 costs $0.8/1M input tokens versus $5/1M for the alternative. This comparison covers specs, pricing, capabilities, benchmarks, provider availability, and production fit.
Claude Haiku 4.5 is ~525% cheaper at $0.8/1M; pay for Claude Opus 4.6 only for coding workflow support.
Specs
| Released | 2025-10-01 | 2026-02-05 |
| Context window | 200k | 1M |
| Parameters | — | — |
| Architecture | decoder only | decoder only |
| License | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Knowledge cutoff | 2025-02 | 2025-12 |
Pricing and availability
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | Claude Opus 4.6 | |
|---|---|---|
| Input price | $0.8/1M tokens | $5/1M tokens |
| Output price | $4/1M tokens | $25/1M tokens |
| Providers |
Capabilities
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | Claude Opus 4.6 | |
|---|---|---|
| Vision | ||
| Multimodal | ||
| Reasoning | ||
| Function calling | ||
| Tool use | ||
| Structured outputs | ||
| Code execution |
Benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude Haiku 4.5 | Claude Opus 4.6 |
|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 73.3 | 80.8 |
Deep dive
On shared benchmark coverage, SWE-bench Verified has Claude Haiku 4.5 at 73.3 and Claude Opus 4.6 at 80.8, with Claude Opus 4.6 ahead by 7.5 points. The largest visible gap is 7.5 points on SWE-bench Verified, which matters most when that benchmark mirrors your workload. Treat isolated benchmark wins as directional, because provider routing, prompt style, and tool access can move real application results.
The capability footprint differs most on reasoning mode: Claude Opus 4.6. Both models share vision, multimodal input, function calling, and tool use, so the practical split is not just feature count. Use those differences to decide whether the page is about raw model quality, agentic coding support, multimodal ingestion, or predictable structured API behavior.
For cost, Claude Haiku 4.5 lists $0.8/1M input and $4/1M output tokens, while Claude Opus 4.6 lists $5/1M input and $25/1M output tokens on the cheapest tracked provider. A 70/30 input-output blend puts Claude Haiku 4.5 lower by about $9.24 per million blended tokens. Availability is 8 providers versus 4, so concentration risk also matters.
Choose Claude Haiku 4.5 when coding workflow support, lower input-token cost, and broader provider choice are central to the workload. Choose Claude Opus 4.6 when coding workflow support and larger context windows are more important. For production, rerun your own prompts through the exact provider, region, and tool stack you plan to ship.
FAQ
Which has a larger context window, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Claude Opus 4.6?
Claude Opus 4.6 supports 1M tokens, while Claude Haiku 4.5 supports 200k tokens. That gap matters most for long documents, large codebases, retrieval-heavy agents, and conversations where earlier context must remain visible.
Which is cheaper, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Claude Opus 4.6?
Claude Haiku 4.5 is cheaper on tracked token pricing. Claude Haiku 4.5 costs $0.8/1M input and $4/1M output tokens. Claude Opus 4.6 costs $5/1M input and $25/1M output tokens. Provider discounts or batch pricing can still change the final bill.
Is Claude Haiku 4.5 or Claude Opus 4.6 open source?
Claude Haiku 4.5 is listed under Proprietary. Claude Opus 4.6 is listed under Proprietary. License labels affect whether you can self-host, redistribute weights, or rely only on hosted APIs, so confirm the upstream license before deployment.
Which is better for vision, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Claude Opus 4.6?
Both Claude Haiku 4.5 and Claude Opus 4.6 expose vision. The better choice depends on benchmark fit, context budget, pricing, and whether your provider route exposes the same capability surface.
Which is better for multimodal input, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Claude Opus 4.6?
Both Claude Haiku 4.5 and Claude Opus 4.6 expose multimodal input. The better choice depends on benchmark fit, context budget, pricing, and whether your provider route exposes the same capability surface.
Where can I run Claude Haiku 4.5 and Claude Opus 4.6?
Claude Haiku 4.5 is available on Microsoft Foundry, Anthropic, Snowflake Cortex, AWS Bedrock, and GCP Vertex AI. Claude Opus 4.6 is available on OpenRouter, Anthropic, AWS Bedrock, and GCP Vertex AI. Provider coverage can affect latency, region availability, compliance posture, and fallback options.
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Last reviewed: 2026-04-24. Data sourced from public model cards and provider documentation.