Qwen: Qwen VL Max vs Anthropic: Claude Haiku 4.5
Head-to-head API pricing and cost comparison between Qwen’s Qwen: Qwen VL Max and Anthropic’s Anthropic: Claude Haiku 4.5. Prices auto-refresh daily from OpenRouter.
Qwen: Qwen VL Max is 48% cheaper for input tokens; Qwen: Qwen VL Max also wins on output tokens.
Side-by-side comparison
| Spec | Qwen: Qwen VL Max | Anthropic: Claude Haiku 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Input price (per 1M) | $0.52 | $1.00 |
| Cached input (per 1M) | — | $0.10 |
| Output price (per 1M) | $2.08 | $5.00 |
| Batch input (per 1M) | — | $0.50 |
| Batch output (per 1M) | — | $2.50 |
| Reasoning price (per 1M) | — | — |
| Context window | 131K | 200K |
| Vision support | Yes | Yes |
| Caching support | No | Yes |
| Batch API | No | Yes |
| Reasoning capability | No | No |
Monthly cost at volume
Estimated monthly API spend at common production traffic levels (input/output tokens per request shown).
| Volume | Qwen: Qwen VL Max | Anthropic: Claude Haiku 4.5 | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
1K req/day 500in / 200out tokens | $20.28 | $45.00 | $24.72 Qwen: Qwen VL Max wins |
10K req/day 1500in / 500out tokens | $546.00 | $1,200 | $654.00 Qwen: Qwen VL Max wins |
100K req/day 3000in / 800out tokens | $9,672 | $21,000 | $11,328 Qwen: Qwen VL Max wins |
1M req/day 8000in / 2000out tokens | $249,600 | $540,000 | $290,400 Qwen: Qwen VL Max wins |
Adjust input/output token counts, request volume, batch & cached pricing.
Related comparisons
Frequently asked questions
Which is cheaper, Qwen: Qwen VL Max or Anthropic: Claude Haiku 4.5?
For input tokens, Qwen: Qwen VL Max is roughly 48% cheaper at $0.52/1M vs $1.00/1M. For output tokens, Qwen: Qwen VL Max wins at $2.08/1M. Real-world cost depends on your input/output ratio — use the calculator to model your actual workload.
What’s the context window difference?
Qwen: Qwen VL Max has a context window of 131K tokens. Anthropic: Claude Haiku 4.5 offers 200K tokens. Larger context windows are valuable for long documents, RAG pipelines, and multi-turn conversations — but they come with higher input-token bills if you fill them every request.
Should I use Qwen: Qwen VL Max or Anthropic: Claude Haiku 4.5?
Choose Qwen: Qwen VL Max if you’re already on the Qwen stack, want broad ecosystem support, or prefer its lower input price. Choose Anthropic: Claude Haiku 4.5 for Anthropic’s ecosystem, native vision input, or its differentiated capabilities. Run a small benchmark on your own prompts before committing — price is only one axis.
How are these prices kept current?
Prices are pulled directly from OpenRouter’s public models API once every 24 hours via a Convex cron job, then normalized to per-1M-token figures. Last refresh: Apr 21, 2026.