Claude 3 Haiku vs GPT-4o

Performance benchmarks + pricing comparison — updated April 2026

Claude 3 Haiku

Anthropic

Cheapest Claude model. Fast responses for simple tasks and basic coding.

Input$0.250/M
Output$1.25/M
Context200K tokens
Best ForSimple queries, fast responses, cost-sensitive tasks
Benchmark45/100

GPT-4o

OpenAI

OpenAI's flagship multimodal model. Strong coding and reasoning at competitive pricing.

Input$2.50/M
Output$10.00/M
Context128K tokens
Best ForGeneral coding, multimodal tasks, chatbots
Benchmark75/100

Benchmark Performance Comparison

Third-party benchmark scores — higher is better. Data sourced from SWE-bench, LiveCodeBench, HumanEval, and BigCodeBench.

BenchmarkClaude 3 HaikuGPT-4oLeader
Overall Score 45 75 GPT-4o leads by 30pts
SWE-bench Verified 38 70 GPT-4o leads by 32pts
LiveCodeBench 46 78 GPT-4o leads by 32pts
HumanEval 68 90 GPT-4o leads by 22pts
BigCodeBench 30 62 GPT-4o leads by 32pts

Cost Comparison by Scenario

Estimated cost per project with 30% cache hit rate. Actual costs may vary based on usage patterns.

ScenarioClaude 3 HaikuGPT-4oSavings
Small Script (1K lines) $0.05 $0.41 Claude 3 Haiku saves $0.36 (89%)
Medium Feature (10K lines) $0.34 $3.06 Claude 3 Haiku saves $2.73 (89%)
Large Project (50K lines) $1.69 $15.31 Claude 3 Haiku saves $13.63 (89%)
Code Review (5K lines) $0.07 $0.78 Claude 3 Haiku saves $0.71 (90%)

Value Analysis (Price per Benchmark Score Point)

Lower is better — how much you pay for each point of benchmark performance.

ModelOverall ScorePrice per Score PointVerdict
Claude 3 Haiku 45 $0.006/pt Better value
GPT-4o 75 $0.033/pt Higher cost per point

Claude 3 Haiku delivers the best value at $0.006 per score point.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Claude 3 Haiku

  • + Very cheap
  • + Fast
  • - Basic capability only

GPT-4o

  • + Strong general-purpose
  • + Good multimodal
  • - Less consistent on coding than Claude

Verdict

Claude 3 Haiku is cheaper at $0.250/M, but GPT-4o scores higher on benchmarks (75 vs 45).

Choose Claude 3 Haiku for cost-sensitive projects, GPT-4o when performance matters most.

Compare with Other Models