Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh) vs DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24)
Which is better for the money: Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh) by Anthropic or DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) by DeepSeek? 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 (Xhigh) scores 32.7 points higher (41.2 vs 8.5) but costs 6.2× as much to run the benchmark ($158 vs $25.4; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh) when you need intelligence above 8.5, and DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) when 8.5 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh) | DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.2 | 8.5 | −79.4% DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) is 79.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $157.58 | $25.37 | −83.9% DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) is 83.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 59.82s | 11.89s | −80.1% DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) is 80.1% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.10 / $0.50 | $0.32 / $0.89 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) vs Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh): 79.4% less intelligence, 83.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 80.1% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh)DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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