ERNIE 4.5 vs ERNIE 4.5 Pro: which model should you choose?
We compared ERNIE 4.5 and ERNIE 4.5 Pro on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. ERNIE 4.5 Pro has the stronger average benchmark score; ERNIE 4.5 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
ERNIE 4.5
ERNIE 4.5 is a multimodal model from Baidu. It offers a 65,536-token context window, costs $13.44 per million input tokens and $56.59 per million output tokens, and averages 80.0 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $13.44 / 1M
- Output
- $56.59 / 1M
- Context
- 65,536
- Avg score
- 80.0
- Open weights
- No
ERNIE 4.5 Pro
ERNIE 4.5 Pro is a multimodal model from Baidu. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $13.89 per million input tokens and $65.19 per million output tokens, and averages 80.5 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $13.89 / 1M
- Output
- $65.19 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 80.5
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | ERNIE 4.5 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $13.44 | $13.89 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $56.59 | $65.19 | A |
| Context window | 65,536 | 1,000,000 | B |
| Max output | 32,768 | 32,768 | Tie |
| Average score | 80.0 | 80.5 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1414.8 | 1414.3 | A |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
ERNIE 4.5 wins 5, ERNIE 4.5 Pro wins 7, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | ERNIE 4.5 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 83.7 | 80.3 | 3.4 | ERNIE 4.5 |
| GPQA Diamond | 77.2 | 74.7 | 2.5 | ERNIE 4.5 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 68.2 | 66.5 | 1.7 | ERNIE 4.5 |
| HumanEval | 83.9 | 86.9 | 3.0 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| MATH-500 | 81.3 | 87.2 | 5.9 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| AIME 2025 | 75.9 | 76.3 | 0.4 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| LiveCodeBench | 72.9 | 76.4 | 3.5 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| IFEval | 86.4 | 86.0 | 0.4 | ERNIE 4.5 |
| TruthfulQA | 83.0 | 83.1 | 0.1 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| HellaSwag | 89.2 | 90.2 | 1.0 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| MMMU | 78.0 | 78.4 | 0.4 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| Arena Elo | 1414.8 | 1414.3 | 0.5 | ERNIE 4.5 |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, ERNIE 4.5 costs about $24.23 per million tokens and ERNIE 4.5 Pro costs about $26.71. ERNIE 4.5 is roughly 9% cheaper than ERNIE 4.5 Pro. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
ERNIE 4.5 Pro has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens, compared with 65,536 for ERNIE 4.5. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, ERNIE 4.5 wins 5, ERNIE 4.5 Pro wins 7, and 0 are tied. On the index average, ERNIE 4.5 Pro leads ERNIE 4.5 by 0.5 points (80.5 versus 80.0).
The price picture favours ERNIE 4.5. The context picture favours ERNIE 4.5 Pro. 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 Pro for quality-sensitive work and ERNIE 4.5 for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose ERNIE 4.5 if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
Choose ERNIE 4.5 Pro if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- You need the larger 1,000,000-token context window.
FAQ
Is ERNIE 4.5 better than ERNIE 4.5 Pro?
On the index average, ERNIE 4.5 Pro leads ERNIE 4.5 by 0.5 points (80.5 versus 80.0). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. ERNIE 4.5 wins 5 benchmarks, ERNIE 4.5 Pro wins 7.
Which is cheaper, ERNIE 4.5 or ERNIE 4.5 Pro?
ERNIE 4.5 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $24.23 per million tokens, versus $26.71 for ERNIE 4.5 Pro.
Which has the larger context window?
ERNIE 4.5 Pro has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens. ERNIE 4.5 has 65,536 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
ERNIE 4.5 is proprietary; ERNIE 4.5 Pro is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with ERNIE 4.5 Pro for quality-sensitive work and ERNIE 4.5 for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.