ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning vs Llama 4 Maverick Instruct: which model should you choose?
We compared ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning and Llama 4 Maverick Instruct on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Llama 4 Maverick Instruct has the stronger average benchmark score; Llama 4 Maverick Instruct is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
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
Llama 4 Maverick Instruct
Llama 4 Maverick Instruct is a multimodal model from Meta AI. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $5.33 per million input tokens and $23.04 per million output tokens, and averages 81.7 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $5.33 / 1M
- Output
- $23.04 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 81.7
- Open weights
- Yes
Specification comparison
| Spec | ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $14.36 | $5.33 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $78.75 | $23.04 | B |
| Context window | 1,000,000 | 200,000 | A |
| Max output | 8,192 | 16,384 | B |
| Average score | 79.8 | 81.7 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1421.5 | 1438.5 | B |
| Open weights | No | Yes | B |
Benchmark comparison
ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning wins 1, Llama 4 Maverick Instruct wins 10, and 1 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 80.6 | 84.6 | 4.0 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| GPQA Diamond | 75.7 | 79.5 | 3.8 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| SWE-bench Verified | 69.8 | 69.1 | 0.7 | ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning |
| HumanEval | 85.0 | 85.0 | 0.0 | Tie |
| MATH-500 | 82.5 | 83.4 | 0.9 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| AIME 2025 | 78.1 | 79.9 | 1.8 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| LiveCodeBench | 71.9 | 75.8 | 3.9 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| IFEval | 88.7 | 88.9 | 0.2 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| TruthfulQA | 82.9 | 84.0 | 1.1 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| HellaSwag | 88.0 | 89.6 | 1.6 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| MMMU | 74.4 | 79.0 | 4.6 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| Arena Elo | 1421.5 | 1438.5 | 17.0 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning costs about $30.46 per million tokens and Llama 4 Maverick Instruct costs about $9.76. Llama 4 Maverick Instruct is roughly 68% 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 200,000 for Llama 4 Maverick Instruct. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning wins 1, Llama 4 Maverick Instruct wins 10, and 1 are tied. On the index average, Llama 4 Maverick Instruct leads ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning by 1.9 points (81.7 versus 79.8).
The price picture favours Llama 4 Maverick Instruct. 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 Llama 4 Maverick Instruct for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.
Choose ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning if
- You need the larger 1,000,000-token context window.
- The workload needs multi-step reasoning.
Choose Llama 4 Maverick Instruct 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 16,384-token output limit.
- You need open weights for self-hosting or fine-tuning.
FAQ
Is ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning better than Llama 4 Maverick Instruct?
On the index average, Llama 4 Maverick Instruct leads ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning by 1.9 points (81.7 versus 79.8). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning wins 1 benchmarks, Llama 4 Maverick Instruct wins 10.
Which is cheaper, ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning or Llama 4 Maverick Instruct?
Llama 4 Maverick Instruct is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $9.76 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. Llama 4 Maverick Instruct has 200,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning is proprietary; Llama 4 Maverick Instruct is open weights.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Llama 4 Maverick Instruct for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.