Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning vs ERNIE 4.5 Max: which model should you choose?
We compared Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning and ERNIE 4.5 Max on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning has the stronger average benchmark score; ERNIE 4.5 Max is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning
Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning is a multimodal model from ByteDance. It offers a 128,000-token context window, costs $14.56 per million input tokens and $58.10 per million output tokens, and averages 81.6 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $14.56 / 1M
- Output
- $58.10 / 1M
- Context
- 128,000
- Avg score
- 81.6
- Open weights
- No
ERNIE 4.5 Max
ERNIE 4.5 Max is a multimodal model from Baidu. It offers a 128,000-token context window, costs $14.41 per million input tokens and $53.71 per million output tokens, and averages 80.6 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $14.41 / 1M
- Output
- $53.71 / 1M
- Context
- 128,000
- Avg score
- 80.6
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning | ERNIE 4.5 Max | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $14.56 | $14.41 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $58.10 | $53.71 | B |
| Context window | 128,000 | 128,000 | Tie |
| Max output | 16,384 | 65,536 | B |
| Average score | 81.6 | 80.6 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1439.2 | 1423.7 | A |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning wins 9, ERNIE 4.5 Max wins 2, and 1 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning | ERNIE 4.5 Max | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 81.8 | 80.8 | 1.0 | Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning |
| GPQA Diamond | 78.1 | 76.4 | 1.7 | Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning |
| SWE-bench Verified | 69.7 | 68.9 | 0.8 | Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning |
| HumanEval | 87.4 | 87.7 | 0.3 | ERNIE 4.5 Max |
| MATH-500 | 85.1 | 84.2 | 0.9 | Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning |
| AIME 2025 | 81.4 | 79.5 | 1.9 | Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning |
| LiveCodeBench | 73.9 | 73.0 | 0.9 | Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning |
| IFEval | 88.7 | 87.1 | 1.6 | Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning |
| TruthfulQA | 82.3 | 83.6 | 1.3 | ERNIE 4.5 Max |
| HellaSwag | 90.7 | 87.7 | 3.0 | Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning |
| MMMU | 78.1 | 78.1 | 0.0 | Tie |
| Arena Elo | 1439.2 | 1423.7 | 15.5 | Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning costs about $25.45 per million tokens and ERNIE 4.5 Max costs about $24.23. ERNIE 4.5 Max is roughly 5% cheaper than Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Both models list a 128,000-token context window. That is enough for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning wins 9, ERNIE 4.5 Max wins 2, and 1 are tied. On the index average, Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning leads ERNIE 4.5 Max by 1.0 points (81.6 versus 80.6).
The price picture favours ERNIE 4.5 Max. 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 Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning for quality-sensitive work and ERNIE 4.5 Max for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- The workload needs multi-step reasoning.
Choose ERNIE 4.5 Max if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 65,536-token output limit.
FAQ
Is Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning better than ERNIE 4.5 Max?
On the index average, Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning leads ERNIE 4.5 Max by 1.0 points (81.6 versus 80.6). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning wins 9 benchmarks, ERNIE 4.5 Max wins 2.
Which is cheaper, Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning or ERNIE 4.5 Max?
ERNIE 4.5 Max is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $24.23 per million tokens, versus $25.45 for Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning.
Which has the larger context window?
Both models list a 128,000-token context window.
Are these models open weights?
Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning is proprietary; ERNIE 4.5 Max is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning for quality-sensitive work and ERNIE 4.5 Max for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.