Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs Claude Haiku 5.5 (High)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) by Anthropic? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallb… scores 11.1 points higher (48.9 vs 37.8) but costs 42× as much to run the benchmark ($3983 vs $94.1; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallb… when you need intelligence above 37.8, and Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) when 37.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) | Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 48.9 | 37.8 | −22.7% Claude Haiku 5.5 (Hig… is 22.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $3,983.28 | $94.07 | −97.6% Claude Haiku 5.5 (Hig… is 97.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 22.52s | 29.47s | +30.9% Claude Haiku 5.5 (Hig… is 30.9% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $0.10 / $0.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) vs Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback): 22.7% less intelligence, 97.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 30.9% slower end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
- Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-medium/claude-haiku-5-5-high · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-medium/claude-haiku-5-5-high?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill