Claude Haiku 4.5 Max vs GPT-4.1: which model should you choose?
We compared Claude Haiku 4.5 Max and GPT-4.1 on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Claude Haiku 4.5 Max has the stronger average benchmark score; GPT-4.1 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
GPT-4.1
GPT-4.1 is a multimodal model from OpenAI. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $15.71 per million input tokens and $64.52 per million output tokens, and averages 82.4 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $15.71 / 1M
- Output
- $64.52 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 82.4
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Claude Haiku 4.5 Max | GPT-4.1 | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $15.98 | $15.71 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $80.37 | $64.52 | B |
| Context window | 200,000 | 1,000,000 | B |
| Max output | 4,096 | 16,384 | B |
| Average score | 83.8 | 82.4 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1452.0 | 1432.4 | A |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Claude Haiku 4.5 Max wins 10, GPT-4.1 wins 2, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Claude Haiku 4.5 Max | GPT-4.1 | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 86.6 | 86.2 | 0.4 | Claude Haiku 4.5 Max |
| GPQA Diamond | 80.3 | 76.1 | 4.2 | Claude Haiku 4.5 Max |
| SWE-bench Verified | 74.0 | 72.2 | 1.8 | Claude Haiku 4.5 Max |
| HumanEval | 88.5 | 88.3 | 0.2 | Claude Haiku 4.5 Max |
| MATH-500 | 88.7 | 86.8 | 1.9 | Claude Haiku 4.5 Max |
| AIME 2025 | 78.2 | 79.9 | 1.7 | GPT-4.1 |
| LiveCodeBench | 79.2 | 77.8 | 1.4 | Claude Haiku 4.5 Max |
| IFEval | 89.9 | 90.4 | 0.5 | GPT-4.1 |
| TruthfulQA | 83.7 | 81.8 | 1.9 | Claude Haiku 4.5 Max |
| HellaSwag | 91.1 | 90.3 | 0.8 | Claude Haiku 4.5 Max |
| MMMU | 81.4 | 76.3 | 5.1 | Claude Haiku 4.5 Max |
| Arena Elo | 1452.0 | 1432.4 | 19.6 | 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 GPT-4.1 costs about $27.91. GPT-4.1 is roughly 13% 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.
GPT-4.1 has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens, compared with 200,000 for Claude Haiku 4.5 Max. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Claude Haiku 4.5 Max wins 10, GPT-4.1 wins 2, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Claude Haiku 4.5 Max leads GPT-4.1 by 1.4 points (83.8 versus 82.4).
The price picture favours GPT-4.1. The context picture favours GPT-4.1. 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 GPT-4.1 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.
Choose GPT-4.1 if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 1,000,000-token context window.
- You need the larger 16,384-token output limit.
FAQ
Is Claude Haiku 4.5 Max better than GPT-4.1?
On the index average, Claude Haiku 4.5 Max leads GPT-4.1 by 1.4 points (83.8 versus 82.4). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Claude Haiku 4.5 Max wins 10 benchmarks, GPT-4.1 wins 2.
Which is cheaper, Claude Haiku 4.5 Max or GPT-4.1?
GPT-4.1 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $27.91 per million tokens, versus $32.08 for Claude Haiku 4.5 Max.
Which has the larger context window?
GPT-4.1 has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens. Claude Haiku 4.5 Max has 200,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Claude Haiku 4.5 Max is proprietary; GPT-4.1 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 GPT-4.1 for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.