Claude Haiku 5.5: Anthropic's Cheapest, Fastest Model

By the ChatGBot Team · Published October 12, 2026

Anthropic has released Claude Haiku 5.5, the small, fast and cheap member of the Claude 5.5 family. It is built for high-volume, cost-sensitive work and runs at a fraction of the price of the bigger models. For routine tasks and high-throughput apps, it may be the most practical Claude yet.

What is Claude Haiku 5.5?

Haiku is Anthropic's smallest and fastest model line, and 5.5 is the newest version. Where Claude Opus 5.5 targets the hardest reasoning and Sonnet 5.5 is the balanced workhorse, Haiku 5.5 is tuned for speed and low cost on everyday tasks. See how the whole lineup fits in Claude models explained.

About 75% cheaper than Haiku 4.5

The headline is price. Reported token costs are around $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.50 per million output tokens, which works out to roughly 75% cheaper than the previous Haiku 4.5 on average. For apps that make millions of calls, that difference adds up fast. For the wider picture, see Claude pricing.

Fast, with a big context window

Haiku 5.5 keeps a 1 million token context window with up to 128K tokens of output, so even the small model can hold long documents or conversations. Anthropic also offers multiple effort levels, from Low up to Max, letting you trade a little speed for more careful answers when a task needs it.

Great as a subagent

One of the most useful roles for a cheap, fast model is as a helper inside a larger system. Haiku 5.5 works well as a subagent alongside Opus 5.5 and Sonnet 5.5: the big model plans, and Haiku handles the many small steps cheaply. That pattern is central to how modern AI agents keep costs under control.

When to use Haiku 5.5

• Use Haiku 5.5 for high-volume, simpler work: classification, extraction, quick replies, drafts and routing.
• Step up to Sonnet 5.5 for most everyday coding, writing and analysis.
• Reach for Opus 5.5 only when you need the absolute best reasoning, cost aside.

Frequently asked questions

When was Claude Haiku 5.5 released? Anthropic announced it alongside Sonnet 5.5 on September 28, 2026, and it became available in early October 2026 as the small model in the Claude 5.5 family.

How much does Claude Haiku 5.5 cost? Reported pricing is about $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.50 per million output tokens, roughly 75% cheaper than Haiku 4.5. Confirm current rates on Anthropic's pricing page.

Is Haiku 5.5 good enough to replace Sonnet or Opus? For simple, high-volume tasks, yes. For harder reasoning, coding and analysis, Sonnet 5.5 and Opus 5.5 are stronger. Many teams use Haiku as a fast subagent alongside them.

Can I use Claude in ChatGBot? Yes. ChatGBot gives you Claude along with GPT, DeepSeek, Qwen and GLM under one subscription, so you can switch models mid chat.

Still deciding which model to use? Our guide to the best AI in 2026 breaks it down by task.

Use Claude and more models in one app

With ChatGBot you get Claude together with GPT, DeepSeek, Qwen and GLM under a single subscription, so you can pick the right model for each task without paying for several tools.