Claude 3 Haiku vs Pixtral 12B
Performance benchmarks + pricing comparison — updated April 2026
Claude 3 Haiku
AnthropicCheapest Claude model. Fast responses for simple tasks and basic coding.
| Input | $0.250/M |
| Output | $1.25/M |
| Context | 200K tokens |
| Best For | Simple queries, fast responses, cost-sensitive tasks |
| Benchmark | 45/100 |
Pixtral 12B
MistralMistral's lightweight vision-language model. Affordable image understanding with good performance.
| Input | $0.150/M |
| Output | $0.150/M |
| Context | 32K tokens |
| Best For | Image understanding, visual QA, cost-efficient multimodal apps |
Cost Comparison by Scenario
Estimated cost per project with 30% cache hit rate. Actual costs may vary based on usage patterns.
| Scenario | Claude 3 Haiku | Pixtral 12B | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small Script (1K lines) | $0.05 | <$0.01 | Pixtral 12B saves $0.04 (79%) |
| Medium Feature (10K lines) | $0.34 | $0.08 | Pixtral 12B saves $0.26 (76%) |
| Large Project (50K lines) | $1.69 | $0.41 | Pixtral 12B saves $1.27 (76%) |
| Code Review (5K lines) | $0.07 | $0.03 | Pixtral 12B saves $0.04 (60%) |
Verdict
Pixtral 12B wins on both price and performance — $0.150/M input with a benchmark score of N/A/100.
For most developers, this is the clear choice between these two models.
Compare with Other Models
Claude Sonnet 4
AnthropicAnthropic's balanced model for coding and general tasks. Best price-performance ratio in the Claude family.
Claude Opus 4
AnthropicAnthropic's most powerful model. Best for complex reasoning and challenging coding tasks.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet
AnthropicPrevious generation Sonnet. Still excellent for coding tasks at the same price point.
Claude 3.5 Haiku
AnthropicFast, cost-effective model for high-volume tasks. Great for code review and simple queries.
Claude 3 Opus
AnthropicFirst generation Opus. Highest reasoning capability in the Claude 3 family.
Claude 3 Sonnet
AnthropicFirst generation Sonnet. Balanced performance for general tasks.