Claude Haiku 4.5 Max vs Gemini 3 Flash: which model should you choose?
We compared Claude Haiku 4.5 Max and Gemini 3 Flash on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Claude Haiku 4.5 Max has the stronger average benchmark score; Gemini 3 Flash is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Claude Haiku 4.5 Max
Claude Haiku 4.5 Max is a multimodal model from Anthropic. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $15.98 per million input tokens and $80.37 per million output tokens, and averages 83.8 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $15.98 / 1M
- Output
- $80.37 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 83.8
- Open weights
- No
Gemini 3 Flash
Gemini 3 Flash is a multimodal model from Google DeepMind. It offers a 128,000-token context window, costs $15.67 per million input tokens and $70.15 per million output tokens, and averages 83.6 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $15.67 / 1M
- Output
- $70.15 / 1M
- Context
- 128,000
- Avg score
- 83.6
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Claude Haiku 4.5 Max | Gemini 3 Flash | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $15.98 | $15.67 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $80.37 | $70.15 | B |
| Context window | 200,000 | 128,000 | A |
| Max output | 4,096 | 65,536 | B |
| Average score | 83.8 | 83.6 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1452.0 | 1450.7 | A |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Claude Haiku 4.5 Max wins 6, Gemini 3 Flash wins 5, and 1 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Claude Haiku 4.5 Max | Gemini 3 Flash | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 86.6 | 83.7 | 2.9 | Claude Haiku 4.5 Max |
| GPQA Diamond | 80.3 | 80.3 | 0.0 | Tie |
| SWE-bench Verified | 74.0 | 72.5 | 1.5 | Claude Haiku 4.5 Max |
| HumanEval | 88.5 | 86.2 | 2.3 | Claude Haiku 4.5 Max |
| MATH-500 | 88.7 | 89.0 | 0.3 | Gemini 3 Flash |
| AIME 2025 | 78.2 | 84.5 | 6.3 | Gemini 3 Flash |
| LiveCodeBench | 79.2 | 79.3 | 0.1 | Gemini 3 Flash |
| IFEval | 89.9 | 91.0 | 1.1 | Gemini 3 Flash |
| TruthfulQA | 83.7 | 84.8 | 1.1 | Gemini 3 Flash |
| HellaSwag | 91.1 | 89.8 | 1.3 | Claude Haiku 4.5 Max |
| MMMU | 81.4 | 78.2 | 3.2 | Claude Haiku 4.5 Max |
| Arena Elo | 1452.0 | 1450.7 | 1.3 | Claude Haiku 4.5 Max |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Claude Haiku 4.5 Max costs about $32.08 per million tokens and Gemini 3 Flash costs about $29.29. Gemini 3 Flash is roughly 9% cheaper than Claude Haiku 4.5 Max. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Claude Haiku 4.5 Max has the larger context window at 200,000 tokens, compared with 128,000 for Gemini 3 Flash. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Claude Haiku 4.5 Max wins 6, Gemini 3 Flash wins 5, and 1 are tied. On the index average, Claude Haiku 4.5 Max leads Gemini 3 Flash by 0.2 points (83.8 versus 83.6).
The price picture favours Gemini 3 Flash. The context picture favours Claude Haiku 4.5 Max. Those two dimensions often matter more than a few benchmark points once a model is good enough for the task.
If you need a single default, start with Claude Haiku 4.5 Max for quality-sensitive work and Gemini 3 Flash for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose Claude Haiku 4.5 Max if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- You need the larger 200,000-token context window.
Choose Gemini 3 Flash if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 65,536-token output limit.
FAQ
Is Claude Haiku 4.5 Max better than Gemini 3 Flash?
On the index average, Claude Haiku 4.5 Max leads Gemini 3 Flash by 0.2 points (83.8 versus 83.6). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Claude Haiku 4.5 Max wins 6 benchmarks, Gemini 3 Flash wins 5.
Which is cheaper, Claude Haiku 4.5 Max or Gemini 3 Flash?
Gemini 3 Flash is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $29.29 per million tokens, versus $32.08 for Claude Haiku 4.5 Max.
Which has the larger context window?
Claude Haiku 4.5 Max has the larger context window at 200,000 tokens. Gemini 3 Flash has 128,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Claude Haiku 4.5 Max is proprietary; Gemini 3 Flash is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Claude Haiku 4.5 Max for quality-sensitive work and Gemini 3 Flash for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.