Claude Haiku 4.5 vs GLM-5.2 — Price, Context, and Capability Compared
Claude Haiku 4.5 vs GLM-5.2: which should I use?
Claude Haiku 4.5 and GLM-5.2 are priced within a few percent of each other. GLM-5.2 has the larger context window (1,000,000 tokens). Default to Claude Haiku 4.5 unless you specifically need GLM-5.2's edge. Only GLM-5.2 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 | GLM-5.2 |
|---|---|---|
| Best fit | Lightweight, high-volume operations like chat, tagging, and moderation. | Long-horizon coding on open weights at a fraction of frontier 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 | GLM-5.2 |
|---|---|---|
| Coding Agent / task | $0.03 (modeled) (winner) | $0.04 (modeled) |
| Input / output rate | $1.00 / $5.00 per M | $1.40 / $4.40 per M |
Speed
Only non-estimated benchmark results are shown as measured.
| Fact | Claude Haiku 4.5 | GLM-5.2 |
|---|---|---|
| Measured throughput | 148 tokens/s | Unavailable |
| Time to first token | 260 ms | Unavailable |
API compatibility
Provider-level wire-format and SDK facts; model-specific parameter differences may still apply.
| Fact | Claude Haiku 4.5 | GLM-5.2 |
|---|---|---|
| OpenAI SDK | Not drop-in | Usable |
| Request shape | Messages API — system prompt is a top-level field, not a message role, and max_tokens is required on every call. | OpenAI-compatible chat/completions endpoint at api.z.ai/api/paas/v4. |
| Streaming | SSE (Anthropic content-block events) | SSE (OpenAI delta) |
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 | GLM-5.2 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider says API data trains models | No | Unavailable |
| 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 | GLM-5.2 |
|---|---|---|
| Move Claude Haiku 4.5 → GLM-5.2 | config; 2 breaking parameter differences | Target: GLM-5.2 |
| Move GLM-5.2 → Claude Haiku 4.5 | Source: GLM-5.2 | code-change; 3 breaking parameter differences |
| Why | Keep the `openai` SDK; change `baseURL` and the API key. | Messages API — system prompt is a top-level field, not a message role, and max_tokens is required on every call. |
Spec comparison
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | GLM-5.2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Price (input) | $1.00/M ✓ | $1.40/M |
| Price (output) | $5.00/M | $4.40/M ✓ |
| Blended price | $2.00/M ✓ | $2.15/M |
| Context window | 200,000 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens ✓ |
| Max output | 32,000 tokens | 64,000 tokens ✓ |
| Modalities | text, vision | text |
| Reasoning mode | No | Yes |
| Released | 2025-11 | 2026-05 |
| Speed | 148 t/s | Not measured |
Cost at scale (3:1 blended)
| Tokens / month | Claude Haiku 4.5 | GLM-5.2 | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000,000 | $2.00 | $2.15 | $0.15 (1.1×) |
| 10,000,000 | $20.00 | $21.50 | $1.50 (1.1×) |
| 100,000,000 | $200.00 | $215.00 | $15.00 (1.1×) |
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 GLM-5.2 if…
- ✓Open-weights coding-first flagship
- ✓1M-token context window
- ✓Beats larger frontier models on long-horizon coding
- ✓Long-horizon coding on open weights at a fraction of frontier pricing.
Run this exact matchup right now
Send the same prompt to Claude Haiku 4.5 and GLM-5.2 side by side and see the outputs yourself.
Try Claude Haiku 4.5 vs GLM-5.2 FreeFAQ
Is Claude Haiku 4.5 cheaper than GLM-5.2?
Claude Haiku 4.5 is cheaper, at $2.00 per million blended tokens vs $2.15 for GLM-5.2.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Haiku 4.5 or GLM-5.2?
GLM-5.2 has the larger context window: 1,000,000 tokens vs 200,000.
Can Claude Haiku 4.5 replace GLM-5.2 for coding?
Both are viable for coding. Fastest Claude model (Claude Haiku 4.5) vs Open-weights coding-first flagship (GLM-5.2) — pick based on which strength matters more for your workload.
Neither of these? See Claude Haiku 4.5 alternatives or GLM-5.2 alternatives.
Related
Pricing verified 2026-04-06. Specs verified 2026-08-08.