API cost decision in 10 seconds

GPT-5 Chat vs Claude 3 Haiku

Pick Claude 3 Haiku when budget and context both matter.

Page updated: 2026-05-26T15:08:08Z Data confirmed: 2026-05-27T17:07:56Z Prices normalized to USD per 1M tokens Sample workload: 1M input + 500K output

Budget verdict

Pick Claude 3 Haiku when budget and context both matter.

On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Claude 3 Haiku is estimated at $0.88 vs $6.25 for GPT-5 Chat, saving $5.38 (86% lower).

Cost-first pickClaude 3 Haiku

Context-first pickClaude 3 Haiku

Sample savings$5.3886%

10x traffic gap$53.75

Claude 3 Haiku is cheaper on the standard workload and also has the larger context window. At 10x that traffic, the same price gap is about $53.75. Use the calculator below to replace the sample workload with your own token volume.

Cost sensitivity

Workload Sensitivity

Same prices, different token mixes.

Claude 3 Haiku stays cheaper across input-heavy, balanced, and output-heavy sample workloads.

Workload shape	Token mix	Better pick	GPT-5 Chat	Claude 3 Haiku
Input-heavy / RAG	5M input + 500K output	Claude 3 Haiku	$11.25	$1.88
Balanced workload	1M input + 1M output	Claude 3 Haiku	$11.25	$1.5
Output-heavy chatbot	1M input + 5M output	Claude 3 Haiku	$51.25	$6.5

Cheaper input Claude 3 Haiku $1.25 vs $0.25 / 1M

Claude 3 Haiku is $1 cheaper per 1M input tokens (80% lower; 5x difference).

Cheaper output Claude 3 Haiku $10 vs $1.25 / 1M

Claude 3 Haiku is $8.75 cheaper per 1M output tokens (87.5% lower; 8x difference).

Larger context Claude 3 Haiku 128K vs 200K

Claude 3 Haiku has 72K more context (1.56x larger).

Sample workload Claude 3 Haiku $6.25 vs $0.88

Claude 3 Haiku is $5.38 cheaper on the standard workload (86% lower).

Estimate your workload cost

Your Workload Cost

Prices are normalized to USD per 1M tokens.

Monthly input tokens Monthly output tokens

GPT-5 Chat Calculating… Estimated API cost

Claude 3 Haiku Calculating… Estimated API cost

Cheaper for this workload Calculating… Difference: calculating…

This estimate uses normalized public API pricing per 1M tokens. It is a planning aid, not a billing quote. Verify provider pricing, limits, and terms before production use.

Quick Decision

Verdict

Claude 3 Haiku has the lower input price; Claude 3 Haiku has the lower output price; Claude 3 Haiku offers the larger context window. For the 1M input plus 500K output sample, Claude 3 Haiku is cheaper for the standard workload.

For a 1M input token plus 500K output token workload, the estimated API cost is $6.25 for GPT-5 Chat and $0.88 for Claude 3 Haiku.

Best Fit

Choose GPT-5 Chat when its provider, model quality, latency, or availability is more important than the numeric price/context winner.

Choose Claude 3 Haiku when you care most about lower input-token price, lower output-token price, and larger context window.

Decision Notes

On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Claude 3 Haiku is estimated at $0.88 vs $6.25 for GPT-5 Chat, saving $5.38 (86% lower).
Claude 3 Haiku is $5.38 cheaper on the standard workload (86% lower).
Claude 3 Haiku is $1 cheaper per 1M input tokens (80% lower; 5x difference).
Claude 3 Haiku is $8.75 cheaper per 1M output tokens (87.5% lower; 8x difference).
Claude 3 Haiku has 72K more context (1.56x larger).

Head-to-Head Specs

Feature	GPT-5 Chat (OpenAI)	Claude 3 Haiku (Anthropic)
Input Price prompt tokens per 1M	$1.25	$0.25
Completion Price per 1M tokens	$10	$1.25
Sample Workload Cost 1M input + 500K output	$6.25	$0.88
Context Window	128K	200K
Release Date	2025-08-07	2024-03-13
Popularity	#123	#150

Use-Case Decision Matrix

Use case	Better pick	Why
Budget-constrained production	Claude 3 Haiku	On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Claude 3 Haiku is estimated at $0.88 vs $6.25 for GPT-5 Chat, saving $5.38 (86% lower).
High-volume input processing	Claude 3 Haiku	Lower prompt-token price matters most when prompts, retrieved passages, or documents dominate the bill.
Long responses and chatbots	Claude 3 Haiku	Lower output-token price matters most when assistants generate many completion tokens.
RAG or long-document work	Claude 3 Haiku	A larger context window leaves more room for retrieved passages, conversation history, or source files.

Related Alternatives

Same-provider lower-cost swaps

gpt-oss-120b (free) can replace GPT-5 Chat when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.
gpt-oss-20b (free) can replace GPT-5 Chat when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.
gpt-oss-20b can replace GPT-5 Chat when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.1.
gpt-oss-120b can replace GPT-5 Chat when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.13.

Larger context near this budget

Llama 4 Scout offers 10M context with $0.23 sample workload cost.
Grok 4.20 offers 2M context with $2.5 sample workload cost.
Grok 4.20 Multi-Agent offers 2M context with $5 sample workload cost.
Owl Alpha offers 1.05M context with $0 sample workload cost.

Popular competitors

Claude Opus 4.7 · Anthropic · #1
DeepSeek V4 Flash · DeepSeek · #2
Hy3 preview · Tencent · #3
Claude Sonnet 4.6 · Anthropic · #4

Cheaper alternatives

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Larger context alternatives

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Provider catalogs

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OpenAI catalog

Review all tracked OpenAI models before deciding whether this matchup is the right shortlist.

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Anthropic catalog

Check other Anthropic models with comparable pricing, context, or release timing.

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GPT-5 Chat

GPT-5 Chat is designed for advanced, natural, multimodal, and context-aware conversations for enterprise applications.

Claude 3 Haiku

Claude 3 Haiku is Anthropic's fastest and most compact model for near-instant responsiveness. Quick and accurate targeted performance. See the launch announcement and benchmark results [here](https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-3-haiku) #multimodal