Model comparison

Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite

Anthropic against Google, compared on context, price, and verified benchmark results.

Catalog record checked September 26, 2026Individual provider fields may changeEvidence confidence: Medium — see receipts below

Anthropic

Claude Haiku 4.5

Budget

Google

Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite

Budget

AI model capability comparison
Specification	Claude Haiku 4.5	Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
Provider
Provider	Anthropic	Google
Tier
Tier	Budget	Budget
Context window
Context window	200K	Winner: 1.05M
Max output
Max output	64K	Winner: 66K
Input / 1M tokens
Input / 1M tokens	$1	Winner: $0.25
Output / 1M tokens
Output / 1M tokens	$5	Winner: $1.50
Weights
Weights	Closed	Closed
Parameters
Parameters	Not disclosedUnverified	Not disclosedUnverified
Reasoning levels
Reasoning levels	extended thinking (budget_tokens)	Not verifiedUnverified
Modalities
Modalities	text, image	text, image, video, audio, pdf
API model id
API model id	claude-haiku-4-5-20251001	gemini-3.1-flash-lite
Released
Released	October 15, 2025	May 7, 2026
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (2026-09-26)
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (2026-09-26)	Winner: 16.9	15.6
SWE-bench Verified (2026-02-17)
SWE-bench Verified (2026-02-17)	66.6	Not verifiedUnverified
Terminal-Bench (2025-10-15)
Terminal-Bench (2025-10-15)	40.21	Not verifiedUnverified

Prices are USD per million tokens at standard rates, excluding batch and caching discounts. Bold indicates the better figure where one is objectively better. Values we could not confirm from the provider are shown as “Not verified” rather than estimated.

Benchmark receipts

Where each score comes from, and how far it can be compared across models.

2026-09-26
Artificial Analysis
Composite index blending reasoning, knowledge, and coding evals into one 0–100 score.
Comparable with caveatOnly same-version scores are comparable. v4.3.2 was rebaselined (the top score fell from 66 on v4.1.1 to ~58), so v4.1.1 figures must not be compared with v4.3.2 figures — check measuredAt.
2026-02-17
SWE-bench official leaderboard (independent harness: mini-SWE-agent bash-only, $0.33/task; conflicts with vendor 73.3 — both preserved)
Real GitHub issue resolution: does the model's patch pass the hidden tests.
Comparable with caveatPost-audit vendor claims and pre-audit scores sit on different task trust levels; scaffolding (agent harness, compute budget) also dominates results. Never aggregate across scaffolds.
2025-10-15
Anthropic — Introducing Claude Haiku 4.5 (vendor, Terminus 2, no thinking, 6 runs; 41.75 with 32K thinking)
Real GitHub issue resolution: does the model's patch pass the hidden tests.
Comparable with caveatPost-audit vendor claims and pre-audit scores sit on different task trust levels; scaffolding (agent harness, compute budget) also dominates results. Never aggregate across scaffolds.

Pricing tiers

Claude Haiku 4.5: Standard $1/$5 per MTok; cache reads 10% of base input. 200K context (vs 1M on Opus 5.5 and Sonnet 5).

Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite: $0.25 input (text, image, video; $0.50 audio) / $1.50 output per MTok; cached input $0.025. GA 2026-05-07 after a 2026-03-03 preview; shutdown no earlier than 2027-05-07.

BudgetRecord checked September 26, 2026

Claude Haiku 4.5

Claude Haiku 4.5 is Anthropic's fastest, cheapest tier for high-volume classification and extraction.

Best for

High-volume classification
Routine extraction
Latency-sensitive stacks

Watch out

No adaptive thinking (manual extended thinking via budget_tokens only); 200K context. Anthropic lists 2026-10-15 as the earliest possible retirement date, and Haiku 5.5 is announced but not released.

BudgetRecord checked September 26, 2026

Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite

Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is Google's cheapest current Gemini API model for high-volume, latency-sensitive pipelines.

Best for

High-volume extraction
Classification
Cheap multimodal input

Watch out

Google recommends 3.5 Flash-Lite for new work, and 3.1 Flash-Lite's earliest shutdown date is 2027-05-07; well behind Flash models on reasoning.

When the cheaper one wins

Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is cheaper on output at $1.50 per million tokens against $5 for Claude Haiku 4.5 — about 3.3×. Use the cheaper tier for classification, extraction, summarisation, and any task where the expensive model’s extra score does not change the accepted output. The expensive one only pays if your hardest task actually fails on the cheap tier. These are standard-tier API rates, excluding batch and cache discounts.

Run the model picker

Evidence confidence: Medium

How strong and complete the evidence behind this comparison is — not a prediction of which model is better.

Pricing verified on both sides — Input and output rates are verified for both models.
3/5 core specs verified on both sides — Not published for at least one side: parameter count, reasoning levels.
1 shared named benchmark (scores match) — Measured on: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index — scores are equivalent, so the benchmark does not separate the pair.
Verified within the last 90 days — Newest catalog check was 2 days ago.
Both models carry source citations — Each side has at least two catalog sources on record.

Source receipts

Each catalog figure was checked against the provider or an independent second source on the date shown.

Claude Haiku 4.5: Anthropic — Claude Haiku 4.5 (accessed 2026-08-29)
Claude Haiku 4.5: Anthropic pricing (accessed 2026-08-29)
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite: Gemini API pricing (gemini-3.1-flash-lite $0.25/$1.50) (accessed 2026-09-26)
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite: Gemini API — gemini-3.1-flash-lite model card (accessed 2026-09-26)
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite: Gemini API deprecations (earliest shutdown 2027-05-07) (accessed 2026-09-26)

Related comparisons

Diving deeper on one model? Claude Haiku 4.5 · Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite

Common questions

Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite

Answered from the verified figures on this page rather than general guidance.

Is Claude Haiku 4.5 or Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite cheaper for input?

Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is cheaper at $0.25 per million input tokens, against $1 for Claude Haiku 4.5 — roughly 4.0× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; Claude Haiku 4.5 has tiered pricing: Standard $1/$5 per MTok; cache reads 10% of base input. 200K context (vs 1M on Opus 5.5 and Sonnet 5). Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite has tiered pricing: $0.25 input (text, image, video; $0.50 audio) / $1.50 output per MTok; cached input $0.025. GA 2026-05-07 after a 2026-03-03 preview; shutdown no earlier than 2027-05-07.

Is Claude Haiku 4.5 or Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite cheaper for output?

Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is cheaper at $1.50 per million output tokens, against $5 for Claude Haiku 4.5 — roughly 3.3× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; Claude Haiku 4.5 has tiered pricing: Standard $1/$5 per MTok; cache reads 10% of base input. 200K context (vs 1M on Opus 5.5 and Sonnet 5). Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite has tiered pricing: $0.25 input (text, image, video; $0.50 audio) / $1.50 output per MTok; cached input $0.025. GA 2026-05-07 after a 2026-03-03 preview; shutdown no earlier than 2027-05-07.

Which has the larger context window, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite?

Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite accepts 1.05M tokens against 200K for Claude Haiku 4.5. This only matters if you routinely send very long documents or large codebases.

Should I use Claude Haiku 4.5 or Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite?

Both sit in the budget tier, so the choice usually comes down to price and context rather than capability. Claude Haiku 4.5 suits high-volume classification; Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite suits high-volume extraction.

Next step

Choosing between them

The verified figures that separate this pair, computed from the catalog rather than restated boilerplate.

Input price: Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite costs $0.25 per 1M tokens versus $1 for Claude Haiku 4.5 — a 4x difference at the headline tier.
Context: Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite takes 1.05M against 200K for Claude Haiku 4.5 — only decisive if your prompts approach the smaller window.

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