Comparison page
GPT-5 mini vs Claude Haiku 4.5
Compare the cheapest practical OpenAI and Anthropic production tiers for high-volume work.
Side-by-side pricing
The table uses the same example request on both models so you can compare high-volume low-cost production tasks without changing the prompt shape.
Input 1,000 / Output 250
| Model | Input / 1M | Cached input / 1M | Output / 1M | Example request | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
GPT-5 mini Current mini model for routine production tasks and high-volume workflows. | $0.250 | No public rate | $2.00 | $0.0008 | OpenAI pricing |
Claude Haiku 4.5 Anthropic’s fastest low-cost model for high-volume, latency-sensitive work. | $1.00 | No public rate | $5.00 | $0.0023 | Anthropic pricing |
When to choose each model
GPT-5 mini
Choose GPT-5 mini when you want the economics or capability profile of OpenAI and you can justify the published rate.
Claude Haiku 4.5
Choose Claude Haiku 4.5 when you need the second option in this comparison and want to test whether it lowers spend without hurting the workflow.
Use cases
- • Routing routine prompts to the cheapest acceptable model.
- • High-volume classification and extraction jobs.
- • Deciding the default tier for utility workflows.
If the prompt is noisy or repetitive, run it through the prompt optimizer first.
If the brief is too loose, use the context engineer to tighten the instructions before you compare models again.
For the broader pricing strategy, read the LLM cost optimization pillar and the cost-per-million-tokens cheat sheet.
FAQ
Which model is cheaper?
GPT-5 mini is the cheaper input-rate option, while Claude Haiku 4.5 is still a strong low-cost Anthropic alternative.
When would Haiku still be the right choice?
When your organization prefers Anthropic behavior or needs a specific Claude workflow, even at slightly higher input cost.
How do I choose between them?
Test the exact workload in the calculator and keep the model that meets quality at the lowest total request cost.