Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Claude Sonnet 4.6 — Price, Context, and Capability Compared
Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Claude Sonnet 4.6: which should I use?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs 3.0× more per blended million tokens than Claude Haiku 4.5. Claude Sonnet 4.6 has the larger context window (300,000 tokens). Default to Claude Haiku 4.5 unless you specifically need Claude Sonnet 4.6's edge. Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 exposes an extended-thinking mode.
Price, speed, and task evidence
Task verdict
Best-fit task signals from the published model strengths; this is not a substitute for a controlled benchmark.
| Fact | Claude Haiku 4.5 | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Best fit | Lightweight, high-volume operations like chat, tagging, and moderation. | Enterprise workloads that need Opus-adjacent quality at Sonnet pricing. |
| Reasoning mode | Unavailable | Available |
Effective workload cost
Modeled for Coding Agent: 20,000 input + 2,000 output tokens per task, 1 turn. This is a workload model, not a provider quote.
| Fact | Claude Haiku 4.5 | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Coding Agent / task | $0.03 (modeled) (winner) | $0.09 (modeled) |
| Input / output rate | $1.00 / $5.00 per M | $3.00 / $15.00 per M |
Speed
Only non-estimated benchmark results are shown as measured.
| Fact | Claude Haiku 4.5 | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Measured throughput | 148 tokens/s (winner) | 76 tokens/s |
| Time to first token | 260 ms | 360 ms |
API compatibility
Provider-level wire-format and SDK facts; model-specific parameter differences may still apply.
| Fact | Claude Haiku 4.5 | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
|---|---|---|
| OpenAI SDK | Not drop-in | Not drop-in |
| Request shape | Messages API — system prompt is a top-level field, not a message role, and max_tokens is required on every call. | Messages API — system prompt is a top-level field, not a message role, and max_tokens is required on every call. |
| Streaming | SSE (Anthropic content-block events) | SSE (Anthropic content-block events) |
Privacy and retention
Provider policy and residency facts from the verified provider registry. A missing retention policy is not treated as a guarantee.
| Fact | Claude Haiku 4.5 | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider says API data trains models | No | No |
| Published retention period | Unavailable | Unavailable |
| Data residency | Unavailable | Unavailable |
Migration effort
Direction is from each displayed model to the other. Effort is derived from provider compatibility and published parameter maps.
| Fact | Claude Haiku 4.5 | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Move Claude Haiku 4.5 → Claude Sonnet 4.6 | drop-in; 0 breaking parameter differences | Target: Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| Move Claude Sonnet 4.6 → Claude Haiku 4.5 | Source: Claude Sonnet 4.6 | drop-in; 0 breaking parameter differences |
| Why | Same provider; only the model identifier changes. | Same provider; only the model identifier changes. |
Spec comparison
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | |
|---|---|---|
| Price (input) | $1.00/M ✓ | $3.00/M |
| Price (output) | $5.00/M ✓ | $15.00/M |
| Blended price | $2.00/M ✓ | $6.00/M |
| Context window | 200,000 tokens | 300,000 tokens ✓ |
| Max output | 32,000 tokens | 64,000 tokens ✓ |
| Modalities | text, vision | text, vision |
| Reasoning mode | No | Yes |
| Released | 2025-11 | 2026-03 |
| Speed | 148 t/s ✓ | 76 t/s |
Cost at scale (3:1 blended)
| Tokens / month | Claude Haiku 4.5 | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000,000 | $2.00 | $6.00 | $4.00 (3.0×) |
| 10,000,000 | $20.00 | $60.00 | $40.00 (3.0×) |
| 100,000,000 | $200.00 | $600.00 | $400.00 (3.0×) |
Choose Claude Haiku 4.5 if…
- ✓Fastest Claude model
- ✓Lowest Claude pricing
- ✓Vision input included
- ✓Lightweight, high-volume operations like chat, tagging, and moderation.
Choose Claude Sonnet 4.6 if…
- ✓Best intelligence-per-dollar in the Claude lineup
- ✓Fast enough for interactive coding agents
- ✓Reliable structured output
- ✓Enterprise workloads that need Opus-adjacent quality at Sonnet pricing.
Run this exact matchup right now
Send the same prompt to Claude Haiku 4.5 and Claude Sonnet 4.6 side by side and see the outputs yourself.
Try Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Claude Sonnet 4.6 FreeFAQ
Is Claude Haiku 4.5 cheaper than Claude Sonnet 4.6?
Claude Haiku 4.5 is cheaper, at $2.00 per million blended tokens vs $6.00 for Claude Sonnet 4.6.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Claude Sonnet 4.6?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 has the larger context window: 300,000 tokens vs 200,000.
Can Claude Haiku 4.5 replace Claude Sonnet 4.6 for coding?
Both are viable for coding. Fastest Claude model (Claude Haiku 4.5) vs Best intelligence-per-dollar in the Claude lineup (Claude Sonnet 4.6) — pick based on which strength matters more for your workload.
Which is faster, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Claude Sonnet 4.6?
Claude Haiku 4.5 is faster: 148 t/s vs 76 t/s, measured on our speed benchmarks.
Neither of these? See Claude Haiku 4.5 alternatives or Claude Sonnet 4.6 alternatives.
Related
Pricing verified 2026-04-06. Specs verified 2026-08-08.