Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning vs Gemini 3 Flash Vision: which model should you choose?
We compared Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning and Gemini 3 Flash Vision on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Gemini 3 Flash Vision has the stronger average benchmark score; Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning
Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning is a multimodal model from Anthropic. It offers a 128,000-token context window, costs $15.11 per million input tokens and $70.05 per million output tokens, and averages 81.4 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $15.11 / 1M
- Output
- $70.05 / 1M
- Context
- 128,000
- Avg score
- 81.4
- Open weights
- No
Gemini 3 Flash Vision
Gemini 3 Flash Vision is a multimodal model from Google DeepMind. It offers a 400,000-token context window, costs $15.06 per million input tokens and $82.14 per million output tokens, and averages 81.9 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $15.06 / 1M
- Output
- $82.14 / 1M
- Context
- 400,000
- Avg score
- 81.9
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning | Gemini 3 Flash Vision | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $15.11 | $15.06 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $70.05 | $82.14 | A |
| Context window | 128,000 | 400,000 | B |
| Max output | 128,000 | 32,768 | A |
| Average score | 81.4 | 81.9 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1444.2 | 1430.3 | A |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning wins 5, Gemini 3 Flash Vision wins 7, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning | Gemini 3 Flash Vision | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 83.4 | 81.8 | 1.6 | Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning |
| GPQA Diamond | 74.6 | 75.7 | 1.1 | Gemini 3 Flash Vision |
| SWE-bench Verified | 69.6 | 71.4 | 1.8 | Gemini 3 Flash Vision |
| HumanEval | 88.7 | 84.5 | 4.2 | Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning |
| MATH-500 | 85.8 | 87.5 | 1.7 | Gemini 3 Flash Vision |
| AIME 2025 | 79.0 | 82.4 | 3.4 | Gemini 3 Flash Vision |
| LiveCodeBench | 73.8 | 73.2 | 0.6 | Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning |
| IFEval | 89.9 | 86.9 | 3.0 | Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning |
| TruthfulQA | 82.5 | 85.5 | 3.0 | Gemini 3 Flash Vision |
| HellaSwag | 90.9 | 91.5 | 0.6 | Gemini 3 Flash Vision |
| MMMU | 76.7 | 80.3 | 3.6 | Gemini 3 Flash Vision |
| Arena Elo | 1444.2 | 1430.3 | 13.9 | Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning costs about $28.84 per million tokens and Gemini 3 Flash Vision costs about $31.83. Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning is roughly 9% cheaper than Gemini 3 Flash Vision. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Gemini 3 Flash Vision has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens, compared with 128,000 for Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning wins 5, Gemini 3 Flash Vision wins 7, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Gemini 3 Flash Vision leads Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning by 0.5 points (81.9 versus 81.4).
The price picture favours Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning. The context picture favours Gemini 3 Flash Vision. 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 Gemini 3 Flash Vision for quality-sensitive work and Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning 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 Reasoning if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 128,000-token output limit.
- The workload needs multi-step reasoning.
Choose Gemini 3 Flash Vision if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- You need the larger 400,000-token context window.
FAQ
Is Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning better than Gemini 3 Flash Vision?
On the index average, Gemini 3 Flash Vision leads Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning by 0.5 points (81.9 versus 81.4). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning wins 5 benchmarks, Gemini 3 Flash Vision wins 7.
Which is cheaper, Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning or Gemini 3 Flash Vision?
Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $28.84 per million tokens, versus $31.83 for Gemini 3 Flash Vision.
Which has the larger context window?
Gemini 3 Flash Vision has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens. Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning has 128,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning is proprietary; Gemini 3 Flash Vision is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Gemini 3 Flash Vision for quality-sensitive work and Claude Haiku 4.5 Reasoning for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.