Claude 4.5 Haiku (Reasoning) vs Granite 4.2 3B
Which is better for the money: Claude 4.5 Haiku (Reasoning) by Anthropic or Granite 4.2 3B by IBM? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude 4.5 Haiku (Reasoning) scores 7.8 points higher (16.9 vs 9.1) but costs 40× as much to run the benchmark ($594 vs $14.9; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude 4.5 Haiku (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 9.1, and Granite 4.2 3B when 9.1 is enough.
| Metric | Claude 4.5 Haiku (Reasoning) | Granite 4.2 3B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 16.9 | 9.1 | −46.2% Granite 4.2 3B is 46.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $594.08 | $14.91 | −97.5% Granite 4.2 3B is 97.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 23.18s | 35.30s | +52.3% Granite 4.2 3B is 52.3% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $1.00 / $5.00 | $0.03 / $0.12 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Granite 4.2 3B vs Claude 4.5 Haiku (Reasoning): 46.2% less intelligence, 97.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 52.3% slower 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.
- Granite 4.2 3B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Claude 4.5 Haiku (Reasoning)Granite 4.2 3BToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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