Compare · updated 2026-11-01
Claude Haiku vs DeepSeek Flash
Claude Haiku is better at writing, maths; DeepSeek Flash is better at quick answers, coding, reasoning, structured data, long documents, translation. Claude Haiku is the cheaper of the two on output.
Measured quality by task
| Task | Claude Haiku | DeepSeek Flash | Better |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quick answers | 85/100 | 91/100 | DeepSeek Flash |
| Writing | 89/100 | 87/100 | Claude Haiku |
| Coding | 82/100 | 85/100 | DeepSeek Flash |
| Reasoning | 74/100 | 80/100 | DeepSeek Flash |
| Maths | 79/100 | 78/100 | Claude Haiku |
| Structured data | 86/100 | 92/100 | DeepSeek Flash |
| Long documents | 87/100 | 91/100 | DeepSeek Flash |
| Translation | 83/100 | 90/100 | DeepSeek Flash |
Quality is Nivana’s measured score for each kind of task, from weekly pairwise evals judged by models from several labs. Prices are live AI Gateway list prices per million tokens. Updated 2026-11-01. How this is measured.
Price and context
| Claude Haiku | DeepSeek Flash | |
|---|---|---|
| Lab | Anthropic | DeepSeek |
| Input per 1M tokens | $0.1 | $0.3 |
| Output per 1M tokens | $0.5 | $1.2 |
| Typical chat answer | $0.00050 | $0.00129 |
| Context window | 1M | 1.05M |
| Router picks it for | Fallback only | Fallback only |
Which should you use?
Use the one that wins the kind of work you do most, unless the price gap outweighs the quality gap for easy requests. Or don’t choose: Nivana scores both, and the rest of the pool, on every request and sends it to whichever is best for that request.
Questions
Is Claude Haiku better than DeepSeek Flash?
On Nivana’s weekly evals Claude Haiku scores higher on 2 of 8 task types (writing, maths) and DeepSeek Flash on 6 (quick answers, coding, reasoning, structured data, long documents, translation). Neither is better at everything.
Which is better for coding, Claude Haiku or DeepSeek Flash?
DeepSeek Flash: 85/100 against 82/100 for Claude Haiku on Nivana’s coding evals.
Which is better for writing, Claude Haiku or DeepSeek Flash?
Claude Haiku: 89/100 against 87/100 for DeepSeek Flash on Nivana’s writing evals.
Which is cheaper, Claude Haiku or DeepSeek Flash?
Claude Haiku: $0.5 per million output tokens against $1.2 for DeepSeek Flash, about 2.4× less. A typical chat answer costs about $0.0005 on Claude Haiku and $0.0013 on DeepSeek Flash.
Or let the router pick, per request
Nivana sends every message to the model that scores best for it, sets how hard it thinks, and tells you which one answered. 2,000 free credits to start, no card.