Skip to main content
AI Choice Engine

Model comparison

Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Qwen 3.8 27B

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

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

Anthropic

Claude Haiku 4.5

Budget

vs

Qwen

Qwen 3.8 27B

Budget · Open weights

AI model capability comparison
SpecificationClaude Haiku 4.5Qwen 3.8 27B
ProviderAnthropicQwen
TierBudgetBudget
Context window200KWinner: 262K
Max output64KNot verifiedUnverified
Input / 1M tokens$1Winner: $0.50
Output / 1M tokens$5Winner: $3
WeightsClosedOpen
ParametersNot disclosedUnverified27B dense VLM (Gated DeltaNet hybrid)
Reasoning levelsextended thinking (budget_tokens)low, medium, xhigh
Modalitiestext, imagetext, image, video
LicenseNot disclosedUnverifiedApache 2.0
API model idclaude-haiku-4-5-20251001qwen3.8-27b
ReleasedOctober 15, 2025August 13, 2026
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (2026-09-26)16.9Not verifiedUnverified
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index [xhigh] (2026-09-26)Not verifiedUnverified33.7
SWE-bench Verified (2026-02-17)66.6Not verifiedUnverified
Terminal-Bench (2025-10-15)40.21Not 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.

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).

Qwen 3.8 27B: Hosted qwen3.8-27b lists $0.50/$3.00 per MTok on Alibaba Cloud Model Studio (API launched 2026-08-19). Open weights (Apache 2.0) for self-hosting.

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.

BudgetOpen weightsRecord checked September 26, 2026

Qwen 3.8 27B

Qwen 3.8 27B is Alibaba's compact deployment-friendly dense VLM — 262K native context (1M via YaRN), Apache 2.0 weights, distinct from the hosted Qwen 3.8 Max API.

Best for

  • Self-hosting on a single node
  • Multimodal input at small scale
  • Long-context on modest hardware

Watch out

Dense 27B means higher memory per token than an MoE of equal active size; video input is multimodal-input only.

When the cheaper one wins

Qwen 3.8 27B is cheaper on output at $3 per million tokens against $5 for Claude Haiku 4.5 — about 1.7×. 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: High

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: max output, parameter count.
  • 1 shared named benchmark with differing scores — Measured on: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index.
  • 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.

Related comparisons

Diving deeper on one model? Claude Haiku 4.5 · Qwen 3.8 27B

Common questions

Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Qwen 3.8 27B

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

Is Claude Haiku 4.5 or Qwen 3.8 27B cheaper for input?
Qwen 3.8 27B is cheaper at $0.50 per million input tokens, against $1 for Claude Haiku 4.5 — roughly 2.0× 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). Qwen 3.8 27B has tiered pricing: Hosted qwen3.8-27b lists $0.50/$3.00 per MTok on Alibaba Cloud Model Studio (API launched 2026-08-19). Open weights (Apache 2.0) for self-hosting.
Is Claude Haiku 4.5 or Qwen 3.8 27B cheaper for output?
Qwen 3.8 27B is cheaper at $3 per million output tokens, against $5 for Claude Haiku 4.5 — roughly 1.7× 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). Qwen 3.8 27B has tiered pricing: Hosted qwen3.8-27b lists $0.50/$3.00 per MTok on Alibaba Cloud Model Studio (API launched 2026-08-19). Open weights (Apache 2.0) for self-hosting.
Which has the larger context window, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Qwen 3.8 27B?
Qwen 3.8 27B accepts 262K tokens against 200K for Claude Haiku 4.5. This only matters if you routinely send very long documents or large codebases.
Do Claude Haiku 4.5 and Qwen 3.8 27B support the same reasoning levels?
Claude Haiku 4.5 exposes extended thinking (budget_tokens), while Qwen 3.8 27B exposes low, medium, xhigh.
Should I use Claude Haiku 4.5 or Qwen 3.8 27B?
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; Qwen 3.8 27B suits self-hosting on a single node.
Can I self-host Claude Haiku 4.5 or Qwen 3.8 27B?
Qwen 3.8 27B publishes open weights, but self-hosting and third-party provider access depend on the licence, hardware, serving support, and availability. Claude Haiku 4.5 is a closed model whose supported access paths are controlled by its provider.

Next step

Choosing between them

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

  • Input price: Qwen 3.8 27B costs $0.50 per 1M tokens versus $1 for Claude Haiku 4.5 — a 2x difference at the headline tier.
  • Context: Qwen 3.8 27B takes 262K against 200K for Claude Haiku 4.5 — only decisive if your prompts approach the smaller window.
  • Deployment: Qwen 3.8 27B publishes weights you can self-host; the other is API-only.
Run the model pickerEstimate stack costAll model comparisons

Choosing a harness rather than a model — Cursor, Copilot, Claude Code, Windsurf, or Lovable? Compare agentic harnesses · Latest releases.