Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) vs Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) by Anthropic or Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium) by Anthropic? 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 Haiku 5.5 (High) scores 3.3 points higher (37.8 vs 34.5) but costs 1.7× as much to run the benchmark ($94.1 vs $56.4; both mid-range class). Pick Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium).
| Metric | Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) | Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 37.8 | 34.5 | −8.7% Claude Haiku 5.5 (Med… is 8.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $94.07 | $56.36 | −40.1% Claude Haiku 5.5 (Med… is 40.1% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 26.02s | 10.41s | −60.0% Claude Haiku 5.5 (Med… is 60.0% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.10 / $0.50 | $0.10 / $0.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium) vs Claude Haiku 5.5 (High): 8.7% less intelligence, 40.1% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 60.0% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
Claude Haiku 5.5 (High)Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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