Claude Haiku 5.5 vs Step 3.5 Flash: cost comparison
Prices updated 2026-11-06 · computed from live provider data
Short answer: Step 3.5 Flash is cheaper on a
3:1 input/output blend — $0.150 per million tokens versus
$0.200, a 25% difference.
Claude Haiku 5.5 offers the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens, against 262,144 for Step 3.5 Flash.
Head to head
| Claude Haiku 5.5 | Step 3.5 Flash | |
|---|---|---|
| Input, per 1M tokens | $0.100 | $0.100 |
| Output, per 1M tokens | $0.500 | $0.300 |
| Blended 3:1, per 1M | $0.200 | $0.150 |
| Context window | 1,000,000 | 262,144 |
| Vendor | claude | empiriolabs |
Monthly cost at real volumes
| Workload (input / output) | Claude Haiku 5.5 | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| 1M in / 250K out | $0.225 | $0.175 |
| 10M in / 2.5M out | $2.25 | $1.75 |
| 100M in / 25M out | $22.50 | $17.50 |
Which should you pick?
Pick Claude Haiku 5.5 when you need the longer context window (1,000,000 vs 262,144 tokens). Pick Step 3.5 Flash when price per token dominates your workload — high-volume classification, extraction, or batch summarisation.