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GPT-4o mini vs Claude Haiku 4.5: The Budget Model Showdown

Not every task needs a flagship model. For chatbots, classification, summarization, and simple code tasks, budget models deliver 90% of the quality at a fraction of the cost. The two leading options? OpenAI's GPT-4o mini and Anthropic's Claude Haiku 4.5. Here's how they compare.

Pricing at a Glance

As of May 2026:

• GPT-4o mini: $0.15 per 1M input tokens, $0.60 per 1M output tokens
• Claude Haiku 4.5: $1.00 per 1M input tokens, $5.00 per 1M output tokens

GPT-4o mini is 7x cheaper on input and 8x cheaper on output. That's a massive gap for models in the same tier.

Context Window

• GPT-4o mini: 128K tokens
• Claude Haiku 4.5: 200K tokens

Claude Haiku wins here. Its 200K context window means you can feed it entire codebases, long documents, or large conversation histories without chunking. If your use case involves long inputs, this matters.

Use Case 1: Customer Support Chatbot

Typical request: ~500 input tokens, ~200 output tokens.

• GPT-4o mini: $0.000195 per request → $5.85/month at 1K req/day
• Claude Haiku 4.5: $0.00150 per request → $45.00/month at 1K req/day

GPT-4o mini costs 87% less. For a high-volume chatbot, that's the difference between $6 and $45 per month.

Use Case 2: Code Generation

Typical request: ~1,000 input tokens, ~1,500 output tokens.

• GPT-4o mini: $0.00105 per request → $31.50/month at 1K req/day
• Claude Haiku 4.5: $0.00850 per request → $255.00/month at 1K req/day

The output cost difference really shows here. Claude Haiku is 8x more expensive for code-heavy tasks.

Use Case 3: Document Summarization

Typical request: ~10,000 input tokens, ~500 output tokens.

• GPT-4o mini: $0.0045 per request → $135/month at 1K req/day
• Claude Haiku 4.5: $0.0125 per request → $375/month at 1K req/day

Here the gap narrows because input tokens dominate. But GPT-4o mini is still 64% cheaper. And if your documents exceed 128K tokens, Claude Haiku's 200K window becomes the deciding factor.

Quality Comparison

Pricing isn't everything. Here's where each model tends to excel:

• GPT-4o mini: Strong at structured output, function calling, and following complex instructions. Excellent for classification and extraction tasks.
• Claude Haiku 4.5: Better at nuanced reasoning, longer context retention, and producing natural-sounding text. Stronger on open-ended generation.

For simple, well-defined tasks (classification, formatting, extraction), GPT-4o mini is hard to beat on price. For tasks requiring more judgment or long-context understanding, Claude Haiku may justify its premium.

The Verdict

GPT-4o mini wins on price across every use case. Claude Haiku 4.5 wins on context window and nuanced reasoning. Choose based on whether your task is cost-sensitive or quality-sensitive.

For most budget-conscious developers, GPT-4o mini is the default choice. Reserve Claude Haiku for tasks where you need the extra context or where output quality directly impacts your product.

Use our cost calculator to model your specific usage and see exactly how much you'd save with each model.