Claude 4.5 Haiku (Reasoning) vs DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max)
Which is better for the money: Claude 4.5 Haiku (Reasoning) by Anthropic or DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) by DeepSeek? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) scores 22.6 points higher (39.5 vs 16.9) but costs 1.1× as much to run the benchmark ($672 vs $594; both premium class). Pick DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude 4.5 Haiku (Reasoning).
| Metric | Claude 4.5 Haiku (Reasoning) | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 16.9 | 39.5 | +133.7% DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (… is 2.3× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $594.08 | $671.96 | +13.1% DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (… is 13.1% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 24.38s | 15.03s | −38.4% DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (… is 38.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $1.00 / $5.00 | $0.29 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) vs Claude 4.5 Haiku (Reasoning): 133.7% more intelligence, 13.1% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 38.4% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude 4.5 Haiku (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Claude 4.5 Haiku (Reasoning)DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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