Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) vs Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) 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 (Max) scores 8.9 points higher (43.4 vs 34.5) but costs 5.9× as much to run the benchmark ($330 vs $56.4; both mid-range class). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) when you need intelligence above 34.5, and Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium) when 34.5 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) | Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 43.4 | 34.5 | −20.5% Claude Haiku 5.5 (Med… is 20.5% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $330.25 | $56.36 | −82.9% Claude Haiku 5.5 (Med… is 82.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 318.48s | 10.41s | −96.7% Claude Haiku 5.5 (Med… is 96.7% 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 (Max): 20.5% less intelligence, 82.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 96.7% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
- Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max)Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-haiku-5-5/claude-haiku-5-5-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-haiku-5-5/claude-haiku-5-5-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill