Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Claude Haiku 4.5 — Anthropic’s mid tier versus its small, cheap tier. Below is the full side-by-side: specifications, API pricing, context window, local hardware requirements, and a clear, data-driven recommendation on which to pick.
| Spec | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Claude Haiku 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Developer | Anthropic | Anthropic |
| Type | LLM | LLM |
| Parameters | Undisclosed | Undisclosed |
| Context window | 1M | 200K |
| Modality | Text, Vision → Text | Text, Vision → Text |
| License | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Open weights | ❌ No | ❌ No |
| Input price ($/1M) | $3.00 | $1.00 |
| Output price ($/1M) | $15.00 | $5.00 |
| VRAM (4-bit) | — | — |
| Min GPU (local) | — | — |
| Released | 2025 | 2025 |
Key differences
- Cost: Claude Haiku 4.5 is 200% cheaper than Claude Sonnet 4.6 on a blended-token basis.
- Context: Claude Sonnet 4.6 wins on context window (1M vs 200K) — better for long documents, large codebases and big RAG inputs.
- Openness: both are proprietary, API-only models — no self-hosting option for either.
Which should you choose?
Choose Claude Sonnet 4.6 if you need the larger context window.
Choose Claude Haiku 4.5 if you want the lower per-token cost for high-volume workloads.
→ Estimate real costs in the API cost calculator · check local hardware in the VRAM calculator · browse all 30+ models.
All specs and prices are pulled live from our AI models database and kept current. Compare either model against others, or estimate your own monthly spend with the free calculators above.