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Gemini 3.8 Flash vs Claude Haiku 5.5: API Cost Comparison

Fast, cheap models for high-volume work, with Gemini 3.8 Flash on an introductory price through 2026.

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  • Updated 7 Nov 2026
Gemini 3.8 Flash and Claude Haiku 5.5 pricing side by side
Side by sideGemini 3.8 Flash
Google
Claude Haiku 5.5
Anthropic
Input / 1M$0.75$0.10
Output / 1M$3.75$0.50
Cached input / 1MNot modelled$0.01
Batch discount50% off50% off
Context window1.05M tokens1M tokens
Long-prompt surchargeNoneAbove 100K input
TierMid-tierSmall / fast

Workload

tok
tok
%

Repeated system prompt or docs

%

Jobs that can wait hours

Models

Anthropic
OpenAI
Google
Mistral
DeepSeek

$ per 1M tokens, input / output

Monthly cost · 30 days

Cheapest
$105
Claude Haiku 5.5
Priciest
$788
Gemini 3.8 Flash
Spread
7.5×
priciest vs cheapest
Per 1K users / mo
Claude Haiku 5.5Cheapest
$105$52.50
Gemini 3.8 FlashIntro price
$788$394
Per 1K users assumesrequests per user per day.

Where the money is

If 60% of your traffic is simple enough for Claude Haiku 5.5, routing it there instead of Gemini 3.8 Flash saves about $410/month.

You're looking at $105–$788/month.

Most AI products I audit can cut that 30–60% with routing, caching and shorter prompts.

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01

Cost at three traffic levels

Same request on both: 2,000 input tokens and 300 output tokens, no caching, no batch, 30-day month.

Monthly cost of Gemini 3.8 Flash vs Claude Haiku 5.5
Requests / dayGemini 3.8 FlashClaude Haiku 5.5Difference
1,000$78.75$10.50$68.25
10,000$788$105$683
100,000$7,875$1,050$6,825

By request type:

Cost per 1,000 calls by request type, Gemini 3.8 Flash vs Claude Haiku 5.5
Per 1K callsGemini 3.8 FlashClaude Haiku 5.5
Classification or routing call$0.3375$0.0450
Support chat reply$2.06$0.2750
RAG answer over your docs$6.00$0.8000
Long document summary$33.75$4.50
02

When to pick which

  • Claude Haiku 5.5 is 7.5× cheaper on input tokens, which matters most for RAG and long prompts.
  • Claude Haiku 5.5 is 7.5× cheaper on output tokens, which matters most for long answers, code generation and reasoning.
  • Claude Haiku 5.5 has a published cached-input rate; this calculator bills Gemini 3.8 Flash's cached tokens at the full input rate.
  • Both offer 50% off for batch processing.
  • Gemini 3.8 Flash has the larger context window (1.05M tokens vs 1M tokens).
  • Gemini 3.8 Flash's prices here are introductory until 31 Dec 2026; after that, input is $1.50 and output $7.50 per 1M.
  • Claude Haiku 5.5 bills the whole request at a higher rate once input passes 100,000 tokens.

Gemini 3.8 Flash: Fast, cheap general work with a 1M window. Strong value while the introductory price lasts.

Claude Haiku 5.5: High-volume classification, routing, extraction and short replies where cost per call matters most.

03

Verdict

Claude Haiku 5.5 wins on price

7.5× cheaper

On price alone, Claude Haiku 5.5 wins: about 7.5× cheaper than Gemini 3.8 Flash for a typical request. Price is one input. Run both on 50 of your real prompts, compare the answers and the billed tokens, and route by difficulty if the quality gap only shows up on hard requests.

04

How the math works

Every provider bills input tokens (your prompt, system prompt and retrieved documents) and output tokens (the reply) separately, per million. Output is usually 4–5× the input price, so chatty apps are output-heavy and RAG apps are input-heavy.

cost per request = (fresh_in × input_price
+ cached_in × cached_price
+ out × output_price) / 1,000,000
× (1 − batched_share × batch_discount)
monthly = cost per request × requests per day × 30

Two adjustments are applied automatically. Introductory prices (currently on some Gemini models) are used until their end date. Long-prompt surcharges kick in when your average input crosses the provider's threshold: 272K tokens on current OpenAI models, 100K on Claude Haiku 5.5.

Not modelled: cache-write premiums, priority or fast tiers, regional surcharges, image and audio tokens, and reasoning tokens a model spends before answering (they bill as output, so add them to your output estimate if you use extended thinking).

05

Questions

Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.8 Flash or Claude Haiku 5.5?
For a typical request of 2,000 input and 300 output tokens, Claude Haiku 5.5 is about 7.5× cheaper: $0.00263 per call on Gemini 3.8 Flash vs $0.00035 on Claude Haiku 5.5. At 10,000 requests a day that is $788 vs $105 a month.
Can I use both Gemini 3.8 Flash and Claude Haiku 5.5?
Yes, and many teams do. Put a thin routing layer in front of both: send the requests that need the stronger or larger-context model to it, and everything else to the cheaper one. Keep prompts provider-neutral so you can move traffic when prices change.
How often do Google and Anthropic change prices?
Often enough that a comparison older than a few months is suspect. The prices on this page were verified on 7 Nov 2026 from each provider's own documentation, linked in the Sources section.
06

Sources

All prices are list prices from each provider's own documentation, standard tier, in USD, last verified on 7 Nov 2026. Providers change prices often; if a number here disagrees with the source, the source wins.

07

More from the workbench

01 · Plan & scopeMVP Cost EstimatorPick features and who builds it. Get an hour-by-hour estimate, not an agency teaser.03 · Money & fundraisingRunway & Burn CalculatorMonths of cash left, the date it hits zero, and whether you are default alive.04 · Money & fundraisingSaaS Metrics CalculatorsLTV, CAC, churn, NRR, burn multiple and more, each with the formula and benchmarks.

Fine print

Tools: on the house.
Engineer: by the hour.

Knowing your AI bill was free. Cutting it in half isn't, but I'm cheaper than the overspend.

I'm Himanshu, an AI and full-stack engineer. I build MVPs, AI agents and the growth plumbing around them for early-stage startups.

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