Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Mistral Large 3 Chat: which model should you choose?
We compared Claude Haiku 4.5 and Mistral Large 3 Chat on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Claude Haiku 4.5 has the stronger average benchmark score; Mistral Large 3 Chat is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Claude Haiku 4.5
Claude Haiku 4.5 is a multimodal model from Anthropic. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $13.86 per million input tokens and $74.67 per million output tokens, and averages 79.4 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $13.86 / 1M
- Output
- $74.67 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 79.4
- Open weights
- No
Mistral Large 3 Chat
Mistral Large 3 Chat is a multimodal model from Mistral AI. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $4.90 per million input tokens and $20.04 per million output tokens, and averages 79.1 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $4.90 / 1M
- Output
- $20.04 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 79.1
- Open weights
- Yes
Specification comparison
| Spec | Claude Haiku 4.5 | Mistral Large 3 Chat | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $13.86 | $4.90 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $74.67 | $20.04 | B |
| Context window | 1,000,000 | 1,000,000 | Tie |
| Max output | 128,000 | 32,768 | A |
| Average score | 79.4 | 79.1 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1421.8 | 1414.2 | A |
| Open weights | No | Yes | B |
Benchmark comparison
Claude Haiku 4.5 wins 6, Mistral Large 3 Chat wins 6, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Claude Haiku 4.5 | Mistral Large 3 Chat | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 84.1 | 83.3 | 0.8 | Claude Haiku 4.5 |
| GPQA Diamond | 74.1 | 75.9 | 1.8 | Mistral Large 3 Chat |
| SWE-bench Verified | 69.2 | 67.1 | 2.1 | Claude Haiku 4.5 |
| HumanEval | 84.7 | 85.0 | 0.3 | Mistral Large 3 Chat |
| MATH-500 | 81.4 | 81.6 | 0.2 | Mistral Large 3 Chat |
| AIME 2025 | 76.5 | 74.1 | 2.4 | Claude Haiku 4.5 |
| LiveCodeBench | 71.6 | 73.0 | 1.4 | Mistral Large 3 Chat |
| IFEval | 85.2 | 86.6 | 1.4 | Mistral Large 3 Chat |
| TruthfulQA | 79.6 | 80.2 | 0.6 | Mistral Large 3 Chat |
| HellaSwag | 89.6 | 87.1 | 2.5 | Claude Haiku 4.5 |
| MMMU | 77.6 | 76.6 | 1.0 | Claude Haiku 4.5 |
| Arena Elo | 1421.8 | 1414.2 | 7.6 | Claude Haiku 4.5 |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Claude Haiku 4.5 costs about $29.06 per million tokens and Mistral Large 3 Chat costs about $8.69. Mistral Large 3 Chat is roughly 70% cheaper than Claude Haiku 4.5. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Both models list a 1,000,000-token context window. That is enough for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Claude Haiku 4.5 wins 6, Mistral Large 3 Chat wins 6, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Claude Haiku 4.5 leads Mistral Large 3 Chat by 0.3 points (79.4 versus 79.1).
The price picture favours Mistral Large 3 Chat. The context picture is effectively a tie. 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 for quality-sensitive work and Mistral Large 3 Chat 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 if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- You need the larger 128,000-token output limit.
Choose Mistral Large 3 Chat if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need open weights for self-hosting or fine-tuning.
FAQ
Is Claude Haiku 4.5 better than Mistral Large 3 Chat?
On the index average, Claude Haiku 4.5 leads Mistral Large 3 Chat by 0.3 points (79.4 versus 79.1). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Claude Haiku 4.5 wins 6 benchmarks, Mistral Large 3 Chat wins 6.
Which is cheaper, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Mistral Large 3 Chat?
Mistral Large 3 Chat is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $8.69 per million tokens, versus $29.06 for Claude Haiku 4.5.
Which has the larger context window?
Both models list a 1,000,000-token context window.
Are these models open weights?
Claude Haiku 4.5 is proprietary; Mistral Large 3 Chat is open weights.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Claude Haiku 4.5 for quality-sensitive work and Mistral Large 3 Chat for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.