Claude 4.5 Haiku (Reasoning) vs Claude Fable 5.2 (Low, Default Fallback)
Which is better for the money: Claude 4.5 Haiku (Reasoning) by Anthropic or Claude Fable 5.2 (Low, Default Fallback) by Anthropic? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-11-10.
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5.2 (Low, Default Fallback) scores 46.5 points higher (53.9 vs 7.4) but costs 5.3× as much to run the benchmark ($2862 vs $541; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Fable 5.2 (Low, Default Fallback) when you need intelligence above 7.4, and Claude 4.5 Haiku (Reasoning) when 7.4 is enough.
| Metric | Claude 4.5 Haiku (Reasoning) | Claude Fable 5.2 (Low, Default Fallback) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 7.4 | 53.9 | +628.4% Claude Fable 5.2 (Low… is 7.3× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $541.07 | $2,861.78 | +428.9% Claude Fable 5.2 (Low… is 5.3× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 28.89s | 22.57s | −21.9% Claude Fable 5.2 (Low… is 21.9% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $1.00 / $5.00 | $8.00 / $40.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Fable 5.2 (Low, Default Fallback) vs Claude 4.5 Haiku (Reasoning): 628.4% more intelligence, 428.9% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 21.9% faster end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude 4.5 Haiku (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 46.30 for $389.
- Claude Fable 5.2 (Low, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 54.60 for $1124.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-4-5-haiku-reasoning/claude-fable-5-2-low · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-4-5-haiku-reasoning/claude-fable-5-2-low?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill