Curiosity · AI Model
Claude 3 Haiku
Claude 3 Haiku is Anthropic's first small model in the Claude 3 family, released March 2024. It was the cheapest and fastest Claude of its era — roughly $0.25/M input tokens — making it the workhorse for classification, routing, and embedded features before Haiku 3.5 and 4.5 raised the quality bar.
Model specs
- Vendor
- Anthropic
- Family
- Claude 3
- Released
- 2024-03
- Context window
- 200,000 tokens
- Modalities
- text, vision, code
- Input price
- $0.25/M tok
- Output price
- $1.25/M tok
- Pricing as of
- 2026-04-20
Strengths
- Cheapest Claude ever at launch — USD 0.25/M input tokens
- Fast response times for short prompts
- Same 200K context window as the bigger Claude 3 models
- Surprisingly strong math and reasoning for its tier at launch
Limitations
- No tool use or JSON mode at the quality Claude 4 provides
- Vision is basic compared to Haiku 4.5
- Claude Haiku 4.5 and 3.5 Haiku outperform it on nearly every task
Use cases
- High-volume classification and labeling
- Intent routing and spam filtering
- Embedded features where cost-per-call dominates
- Legacy pipelines pinned to the Claude 3 family
Benchmarks
| Benchmark | Score | As of |
|---|---|---|
| MMLU | ≈75% | 2024-03 |
| HumanEval | ≈76% | 2024-03 |
| GSM8K (math) | ≈89% | 2024-03 |
Frequently asked questions
What is Claude 3 Haiku?
Claude 3 Haiku is the original small, fast, cheap model in Anthropic's Claude 3 family, released March 2024. It was the cheapest Claude of its era and became widely used for classification and routing workloads.
Should I still use Claude 3 Haiku in 2026?
For new projects, use Claude Haiku 4.5 — it offers substantially better quality at comparable cost. Claude 3 Haiku remains popular only where existing pipelines are tuned to its specific behaviour.
How much does Claude 3 Haiku cost?
As of April 2026, Claude 3 Haiku is priced at USD 0.25 per million input tokens and USD 1.25 per million output tokens — still one of the cheapest Claude tiers available.
Does Claude 3 Haiku support vision?
Yes — all three Claude 3 models (Opus, Sonnet, Haiku) shipped with vision input at launch in March 2024. Quality is modest compared to later models, so use Haiku 4.5 or Gemini 2.5 Flash for demanding vision work.
Sources
- Anthropic — Claude 3 family — accessed 2026-04-20
- Anthropic — Pricing — accessed 2026-04-20