Claude Haiku 4.5 Matches Sonnet 4 Performance, Doubles Speed, Cuts Cost
When I first saw Claude Haiku 4.5, the headline was hard to miss: it matches Anthropic’s Sonnet 4 on reasoning, coding and other tough tasks. That part alone sounds impressive, but the real kicker is how it gets there. The new model runs at more than twice the speed of Sonnet 4 and, oddly enough, it costs roughly a third as much - a three-to-one saving that could matter for anyone handling a flood of requests.
For the first time in the Haiku series, 4.5 also offers “extended thinking,” which seems to let it follow longer chains of logic and tackle more involved problems. The speed jump isn’t a tiny tweak; it actually means users see noticeably faster turn-around when they batch dozens or hundreds of queries. And the cost drop isn’t just marketing fluff - the numbers line up with a concrete one-third price tag compared to the older benchmark.
While the performance parity suggests no loss in capability, the added throughput and lower price point probably give developers a solid reason to swap in Haiku 4.5 for their most demanding workloads.
Claude Haiku 4.5 delivers performance comparable to Sonnet 4 across reasoning, coding, and complex tasks, but at over twice the speed and one-third the cost, making it ideal for high-volume applications. For the first time in the Haiku family, 4.5 supports extended thinking, enabling advanced reasoning: Claude Haiku 4.5 introduces context awareness, allowing the model to manage its conversation space more effectively: This is the first Haiku model to include native context awareness. Claude Haiku 4.5 offers robust coding capabilities and full tool support: Across standard benchmarks, Claude Haiku 4.5 punches above its weight.
It matches Sonnet 4.5 on many coding and reasoning tests while delivering substantially better efficiency, roughly one-third the cost and over twice the speed in throughput and latency-sensitive tasks. Compared to earlier Haiku releases, 4.5 improves token-per-second throughput, multi-tool orchestration, and multi-turn coherence, making it particularly strong for real-time assistants and high-volume pipelines. In short, Haiku 4.5 offers near-frontier accuracy with a clear edge in cost-performance and responsiveness.
Claude Haiku 4.5 showed up on October 15, and Anthropic says it hits the same marks as Claude Sonnet 4 while running more than twice as fast and costing about a third as much. It’s also the first Haiku model to offer “extended thinking,” which they pitch as a boost for advanced reasoning. Those numbers look tempting for anyone with a high-volume pipeline, but the only proof we’ve seen so far comes from internal tests.
It’s also not obvious whether the cost edge will hold up when the workload shifts or scales. I suspect most teams will line Haiku up against their current baselines just to see if the speed gain outweighs any subtle dip in quality. In any case, the launch signals that Anthropic is squeezing more out of smaller architectures than before.
Whether the broader AI community will start treating Haiku 4.5 as a go-to model or just a niche option remains to be seen.
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Common Questions Answered
How does Claude Haiku 4.5's performance compare to Claude Sonnet 4?
Claude Haiku 4.5 delivers performance that is comparable to Claude Sonnet 4 across key areas such as reasoning, coding, and handling complex tasks. This parity in capability is a significant achievement for the smaller Haiku model line.
What are the primary speed and cost advantages of using Claude Haiku 4.5 over Sonnet 4?
Claude Haiku 4.5 operates at more than twice the speed of Sonnet 4, significantly reducing latency for users. Furthermore, it costs about one-third of what Sonnet 4 requires, making it highly economical for high-volume workloads.
What is the 'extended thinking' feature introduced in Claude Haiku 4.5?
The 'extended thinking' feature is a new capability for the Haiku family that allows the model to tackle longer chains of reasoning and more advanced problems. This enhancement enables Claude Haiku 4.5 to perform more sophisticated cognitive tasks than its predecessors.
When was Claude Haiku 4.5 released and what is its main target application?
Claude Haiku 4.5 was released on October 15, as announced in the article. Its combination of high performance, speed, and low cost makes it particularly ideal for high-volume applications where efficiency is critical.