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Claude 3.5 Haiku vs o3

A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.

Updated

Claude 3.5 Haiku specs · o3 specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceClaude 3.5 Haiku

    Claude 3.5 Haiku is roughly 2.0× cheaper on output tokens ($4.00 vs $8.00 per 1M).

  • Context windowTie

    Both ship a 200K-token context window.

  • BenchmarksTie

    No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores.

  • ModalitiesTie

    Both handle text, vision.

  • OpennessTie

    Both are closed-weight, API-only.

On balance Claude 3.5 Haiku edges ahead, winning 1 of 5 categories against o3's 0. Claude 3.5 Haiku is roughly 2.0× cheaper on output tokens ($4.00 vs $8.00 per 1M). Both ship a 200K-token context window.

No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. Both target the same set of modalities (text, vision), so the deciding factors are price, context, and raw quality. Both are closed-weight, API-only.

o3 is the newer of the two, released 5 months after Claude 3.5 Haiku, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Claude 3.5 Haiku is usually picked for customer support and code completion workloads, while o3 sees more deployments in reasoning and math. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

SpecClaude 3.5 Haikuo3
ProviderAnthropicOpenAI
ReleasedNov 2024Apr 2025
Modalitiestext, visiontext, vision
Context window200K tokens200K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1M$0.80 / 1M tokens$2.00 / 1M tokens
Output · 1M$4.00 / 1M tokens$8.00 / 1M tokens
Knowledge cutoff,2024-06
Open weightsNoNo
API availableYesYes

Pricing at scale

What you'd actually pay at typical workloads. Numbers come from each model's published per-million-token rates.

  • Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day$8.40 vs $18.00
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$84.00 vs $180
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$144 vs $348

Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: $8.40 vs $18.00 per month, model A comes out ahead. Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: $84.00 vs $180 per month, model A comes out ahead. RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: $144 vs $348 per month, model A comes out ahead.

Price calculator

Estimated spend for the listed models at your usage. Numbers are derived from each model's published per-million-token rates.

  • Claude 3.5 Haiku$0.280
  • o3$0.600

Benchmarks compared

Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.

Claude 3.5 Haikuo3
  • HumanEval,95.0
  • GPQA,87.7
Pick Claude 3.5 Haiku if

Claude 3.5 Haiku fits when…

  • Fast
  • Cheap for Anthropic
  • Strong code at small size
  • Cost-sensitive workloads, 2.0× cheaper than o3 on output tokens.
Pick o3 if

o3 fits when…

  • Industry-leading reasoning depth at launch
  • Strong on math, science, and abstract puzzles
  • Tool-use during reasoning loops
Don't want either?

Consider Claude Opus 4.7

Anthropic's mid-2026 flagship, ahead on SWE-bench, agent reliability, and writing quality.

See Claude Opus 4.7 specsClaude 3.5 Haiku vs Claude Opus 4.7o3 vs Claude Opus 4.7

Frequently asked

  • Is Claude 3.5 Haiku or o3 cheaper?
    Claude 3.5 Haiku is cheaper at $4.00 / 1M tokens per million output tokens, vs $8.00 / 1M tokens for o3.
  • Which has the larger context window?
    Both Claude 3.5 Haiku and o3 ship a 200K-token context window.
  • Is Claude 3.5 Haiku or o3 better for coding?
    Both Claude 3.5 Haiku and o3 are competitive on coding benchmarks. See each model's individual spec page for HumanEval and SWE-bench scores where published. For an opinionated pick, consult our Best LLM for Coding ranking.
  • Are either of these models open source?
    Neither model ships open weights, both are accessible only via their respective providers' APIs.
  • When were Claude 3.5 Haiku and o3 released?
    Claude 3.5 Haiku was released by Anthropic on 2024-11-04. o3 was released by OpenAI on 2025-04-16.
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