ERNIE 4.5 Max vs ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning: which model should you choose?
We compared ERNIE 4.5 Max and ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. ERNIE 4.5 Max has the stronger average benchmark score; ERNIE 4.5 Max is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
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
ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning
ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning is a multimodal model from Baidu. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $14.36 per million input tokens and $78.75 per million output tokens, and averages 79.8 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $14.36 / 1M
- Output
- $78.75 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 79.8
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | ERNIE 4.5 Max | ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $14.41 | $14.36 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $53.71 | $78.75 | A |
| Context window | 128,000 | 1,000,000 | B |
| Max output | 65,536 | 8,192 | A |
| Average score | 80.6 | 79.8 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1423.7 | 1421.5 | A |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
ERNIE 4.5 Max wins 9, ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning wins 3, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | ERNIE 4.5 Max | ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 80.8 | 80.6 | 0.2 | ERNIE 4.5 Max |
| GPQA Diamond | 76.4 | 75.7 | 0.7 | ERNIE 4.5 Max |
| SWE-bench Verified | 68.9 | 69.8 | 0.9 | ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning |
| HumanEval | 87.7 | 85.0 | 2.7 | ERNIE 4.5 Max |
| MATH-500 | 84.2 | 82.5 | 1.7 | ERNIE 4.5 Max |
| AIME 2025 | 79.5 | 78.1 | 1.4 | ERNIE 4.5 Max |
| LiveCodeBench | 73.0 | 71.9 | 1.1 | ERNIE 4.5 Max |
| IFEval | 87.1 | 88.7 | 1.6 | ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning |
| TruthfulQA | 83.6 | 82.9 | 0.7 | ERNIE 4.5 Max |
| HellaSwag | 87.7 | 88.0 | 0.3 | ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning |
| MMMU | 78.1 | 74.4 | 3.7 | ERNIE 4.5 Max |
| Arena Elo | 1423.7 | 1421.5 | 2.2 | ERNIE 4.5 Max |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, ERNIE 4.5 Max costs about $24.23 per million tokens and ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning costs about $30.46. ERNIE 4.5 Max is roughly 20% cheaper than ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens, compared with 128,000 for ERNIE 4.5 Max. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, ERNIE 4.5 Max wins 9, ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning wins 3, and 0 are tied. On the index average, ERNIE 4.5 Max leads ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning by 0.8 points (80.6 versus 79.8).
The price picture favours ERNIE 4.5 Max. The context picture favours ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning. 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 ERNIE 4.5 Max for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.
Choose ERNIE 4.5 Max if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 65,536-token output limit.
Choose ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning if
- You need the larger 1,000,000-token context window.
- The workload needs multi-step reasoning.
FAQ
Is ERNIE 4.5 Max better than ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning?
On the index average, ERNIE 4.5 Max leads ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning by 0.8 points (80.6 versus 79.8). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. ERNIE 4.5 Max wins 9 benchmarks, ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning wins 3.
Which is cheaper, ERNIE 4.5 Max or ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning?
ERNIE 4.5 Max is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $24.23 per million tokens, versus $30.46 for ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning.
Which has the larger context window?
ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens. ERNIE 4.5 Max has 128,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
ERNIE 4.5 Max is proprietary; ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with ERNIE 4.5 Max for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.