Claude Haiku 5.5 vs Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite: which API costs less?
Averaged across three realistic workloads, Claude Haiku 5.5 is about 64% cheaper than Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite. Below: raw rates and side-by-side monthly costs, computed from prices verified 2026-10-17 (we track what you are billed today, promos included).
Rates per 1M tokens
| Model | Input | Output | Cached input |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 5.5Anthropic | $0.100 | $0.500 | $0.010 |
| Gemini 3.1 Flash-LiteGoogle | $0.250 | $1.50 | $0.025 |
Claude Haiku 5.5: Prompts up to 100K tokens; longer prompts cost $0.50/$2.50.
Monthly cost, side by side
| Workload | Claude Haiku 5.5 | Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
Customer-support chatbot 2M input + 0.5M output tokens/month, 60% of input served from prompt cache | $0.342 | $0.980 | Claude Haiku 5.5 −65% |
RAG / document Q&A 20M input + 1M output tokens/month, 70% cached (shared context) | $1.24 | $3.35 | Claude Haiku 5.5 −63% |
Agentic coding assistant 50M input + 5M output tokens/month, 80% cached (long sessions) | $3.90 | $11.00 | Claude Haiku 5.5 −65% |
Your traffic looks different? Run your own numbers in the calculator.
FAQ
Which is cheaper: Claude Haiku 5.5 or Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite?
Across three realistic workloads (chatbot, RAG, agent), Claude Haiku 5.5 works out about 64% cheaper than Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite on average. Raw rates: Claude Haiku 5.5 $0.100/$0.500 per 1M tokens vs Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite $0.250/$1.50. Verified 2026-10-17.
Does prompt caching change the comparison?
Yes — cached input costs $0.010 on Claude Haiku 5.5 and $0.025 on Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite. Our scenario numbers already include realistic cache hit rates.
Is cheaper always better?
No. Price is one axis — model capability, context window and latency differ. This page answers only the cost question; benchmark quality on your own tasks before switching.