At a glance
| Spec | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Claude Haiku 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Anthropic |
| Input / 1M | $0.60 | $0.16 |
| Output / 1M | $3.00 | $0.80 |
| Context | 200K | 200K |
| Extended thinking | Yes | No |
The verdict
For most teams, Claude Haiku 4.5 is the better default if cost matters, while Claude Sonnet 4.6 earns its premium on the hardest tasks. Pick based on whether a wrong answer is expensive enough to justify the higher price.
Claude Sonnet 4.6: where it wins
Claude Sonnet 4.6 hits the sweet spot for most production workloads. It's fast enough for real-time apps and smart enough for genuinely hard tasks, at one-fifth the price of Opus. For most teams, this is the default.
Best for: coding assistants and ide integrations, content generation at scale.
Claude Haiku 4.5: where it wins
Claude Haiku 4.5 is built for speed and volume. Classification, extraction, simple Q&A, content moderation: tasks where you need a fast, cheap answer and don't need flagship reasoning. Responses typically land in under a second.
Best for: high-volume classification and tagging, content moderation pipelines.
Cost in practice
On a typical request with 2,000 input and 800 output tokens, Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs about $0.00360 and Claude Haiku 4.5 about $0.00096. Plug in your own numbers with the cost calculator.
Run both behind one API
Switch between Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Claude Haiku 4.5 by changing one line. $1 free to start.
Start FreeFAQ
Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Claude Haiku 4.5 cheaper?
Claude Haiku 4.5 is cheaper on input tokens ($0.16 vs $0.60 per 1M). Output pricing follows the same order.
Which is better for coding, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Claude Haiku 4.5?
For most teams, Claude Haiku 4.5 is the better default if cost matters, while Claude Sonnet 4.6 earns its premium on the hardest tasks. Pick based on whether a wrong answer is expensive enough to justify the higher price.
Can I use both Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Claude Haiku 4.5 with one API?
Yes. Through KissAPI both run behind one OpenAI-compatible endpoint, so you can route between Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Claude Haiku 4.5 by changing only the model id.