On list price, Claude Haiku 5.5 is the cheaper model: $0.10 input and $0.50 output per million tokens for prompts up to 100,000 tokens, against Gemini 3.8 Flash's introductory $0.75 input and $3.75 output (through December 31, 2026). Above 100,000 prompt tokens Haiku 5.5 moves to $0.50 / $2.50, which is still below Gemini 3.8 Flash's flat introductory rate.
If you searched for haiku 5.5 vs gemini 3.8 flash or haiku 5.5 cost, the tables below give both official price sheets, worked cost examples, the published specs and where each model stands in AI Rank's data. Gemini 3.8 Flash has an Arena rating; Haiku 5.5 does not yet, so there is no like-for-like Arena comparison.
Haiku 5.5 vs Gemini 3.8 Flash: Price Sheet
All prices are USD per million tokens on each vendor's own API (Claude Platform and Gemini Developer API, paid tier), checked October 14, 2026.
| Rate | Claude Haiku 5.5 (prompt ≤100K) | Claude Haiku 5.5 (prompt >100K) | Gemini 3.8 Flash (until Dec 31, 2026) | Gemini 3.8 Flash (from Jan 1, 2027) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Input | $0.10 | $0.50 | $0.75 | $1.50 |
| Output | $0.50 | $2.50 | $3.75 | $7.50 |
| Cache read | $0.01 | $0.05 | $0.075 | $0.15 |
| Batch input / output | $0.05 / $0.25 | $0.25 / $1.25 | $0.375 / $1.875 | $0.75 / $3.75 |
Sources: Anthropic pricing and Gemini API pricing. Gemini's output price includes thinking tokens, and its context cache also has a storage charge ($0.50 per million tokens per hour until the end of 2026). Haiku 5.5 cache writes cost extra ($0.125 for a 5-minute write in the lower tier). Gemini 3.8 Flash also has a free tier in the Gemini API; Haiku 5.5 does not have an equivalent free API tier, though new Anthropic accounts get small trial credits.
Haiku 5.5 Cost: Worked Examples
Haiku 5.5 is priced per request by prompt length: if a request's prompt (including cache reads and writes) is over 100,000 tokens, the whole request pays the higher rate. For the full rules, see our Claude Haiku 5.5 API pricing guide.
These are calculated illustrations at list price, with no caching, tools or batch discount:
| Assumed request | Claude Haiku 5.5 | Gemini 3.8 Flash (intro) | Gemini 3.8 Flash (2027) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 input + 2,000 output | $0.002 | $0.015 | $0.030 |
| 150,000 input + 2,000 output | $0.080 | $0.120 | $0.240 |
One caution: the two vendors use different tokenizers, so the same text does not produce the same token count. Anthropic says its tokenizer for Claude 4.7 and later models produces about 30% more tokens for the same text than its earlier one. Measure token counts on your own prompts with each API before comparing bills.
Specs Side by Side
| Item | Claude Haiku 5.5 | Gemini 3.8 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Release | October 7, 2026 | September 2, 2026 (GA) |
| API model ID | claude-haiku-5-5 |
gemini-3.8-flash |
| Context window | 1M tokens | 1,048,576 input tokens |
| Max output | 128K tokens | 65,536 tokens |
| Reasoning control | Adaptive thinking with effort (default medium) |
Thinking levels low, medium (default), high |
| Inputs | Text and image | Text, image, video, audio and PDF |
| Knowledge cutoff | June 2026 | March 2026 |
Sources: Anthropic models overview, Claude Haiku page and Google's Gemini 3.8 Flash model page. Anthropic positions Haiku 5.5 for high-volume, latency-sensitive work such as classification, extraction, routing and subagents. Google calls Gemini 3.8 Flash its "most intelligent Flash model", aimed at software engineering and agents. For a full profile of Google's model, see our Gemini 3.8 Flash guide.
Arena and OpenRouter Usage
On the Arena text leaderboard (style control, published October 8, 2026), AI Rank lists Gemini 3.8 Flash (high) at #8 of 414 overall, rated 1497 (95% interval 1492–1501) from 31,437 votes. Claude Haiku 5.5 is not on that leaderboard yet; the newest Haiku listed is Claude Haiku 4.5 at #142 (1414). Do not read the gap between those two entries as a Haiku 5.5 result.
→ Track it on AI Rank: Gemini 3.8 Flash (high) — Arena rating, rank and history
On OpenRouter's weekly text usage ranking (October 6–12, 2026):
| OpenRouter model ID | Rank | Tokens | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
google/gemini-3.8-flash-20260902 |
#14 | 1.71T | -7% |
anthropic/claude-haiku-5.5-20261007 |
#20 | 1.20T | New |
Haiku 5.5 reached #20 in its first week. These figures count tokens on OpenRouter only. They do not measure quality, and they leave out traffic that goes straight to Anthropic or Google.
→ Live usage: See where both rank this week in the OpenRouter model usage ranking on AI Rank (tokens, Oct 6–12, 2026 window).
Which One to Pick
- Lowest token bill on short prompts: Haiku 5.5's lower-tier rates are 7.5 times lower than Gemini 3.8 Flash's introductory rates on both input and output.
- Audio, video or PDF input: Gemini 3.8 Flash accepts them natively; Haiku 5.5 takes text and image.
- Long outputs: Haiku 5.5 allows up to 128K output tokens versus 65,536 for Gemini 3.8 Flash.
- Free experimentation: Gemini 3.8 Flash has a free API tier.
- Price after 2026: Gemini 3.8 Flash doubles to $1.50 / $7.50 on January 1, 2027, per Google's pricing page.
Run your own evaluation on representative tasks; price per token does not tell you the cost of a successful task.
Compare before you choose: pricing changes and rankings move daily — check the current model rankings on AI Rank before you commit.
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Prepared with automated editorial assistance and checked against official sources and dated AI Rank data on October 14, 2026. We did not run our own benchmarks for this article.