Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium) vs Qwen3.8 Max
Which is better for the money: Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium) by Anthropic or Qwen3.8 Max by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.8 Max scores 5.7 points higher (40.2 vs 34.5) but costs 56× as much to run the benchmark ($3172 vs $56.4; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max when you need intelligence above 34.5, and Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium) when 34.5 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium) | Qwen3.8 Max | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 34.5 | 40.2 | +16.5% Qwen3.8 Max is 16.5% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $56.36 | $3,172.37 | +5528.8% Qwen3.8 Max is 56× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 14.67s | 64.37s | +338.8% Qwen3.8 Max is 338.8% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.10 / $0.50 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 Max vs Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium): 16.5% more intelligence, 5528.8% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 338.8% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Qwen3.8 Max is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium)Qwen3.8 MaxToday's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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