Gemini 4 Carbon vs Claude Haiku 5.5
Gemini 4 Carbon and Claude Haiku 5.5 are within three points on the Models at Work leaderboard, which we treat as a tie (75 vs 73 out of 100). On independent tests alone, Gemini 4 Carbon is ahead (92 vs 55). Claude Haiku 5.5 is cheaper: 1,000 support replies cost about $0.50 at list price, against $10 on Gemini 4 Carbon, which is 20 times as much. On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, one of the independent tests, Gemini 4 Carbon leads 60 to 36.
| Gemini 4 Carbon · Google | Claude Haiku 5.5 · Anthropic | |
|---|---|---|
| Leaderboard rank | #1 | #2 |
| Score (0–100) | 75 | 73 |
| Kind of work | Hardest problems | High-volume work |
| Price per 1M tokens | $2 to read · $10 to write | $0.10 to read · $0.50 to write |
| Reads at once | 1M tokens (about 750,000 words) | 1M tokens (about 750,000 words) |
| Where you can get it | Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform (Google Cloud), Google AI Studio, Gemini for business, Gemini app (Google AI Ultra) | Claude Team and Enterprise, Amazon Bedrock, Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform (Google Cloud), Microsoft Foundry, GitHub Copilot |
| Can a company host it itself | No | No |
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index | 60 | 36 |
| Best for | Reading and comparing large sets of dense documents, Legal and finance analysis, Multi-step research | Sorting and routing tickets, Pulling fields out of invoices, First-pass support replies, Tagging and classifying records at volume |
Cost of 1,000 jobs
| 1,000 of these | Gemini 4 Carbon | Claude Haiku 5.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Support repliesthe customer message, the account notes and two help articles read; a 300-word reply written | $10 | $0.50 |
| Documents processeda two-page invoice or form read; the fields pulled out | $7 | $0.35 |
| Calls summariseda 40-minute call transcript read; a summary and next steps written | $26 | $1.30 |
| Contracts revieweda 40-page contract read against a checklist; a memo of issues written | $75 | $3.75 |
| Drafts writtena brief and one example read; a 600-word email or proposal section written | $11 | $0.55 |
Worked out from each vendor’s list price and a fixed size for each job. A product built on a model charges its own price on top. See what every model costs for the same jobs.
Choose Gemini 4 Carbon for
- Reading and comparing large sets of dense documents
- Legal and finance analysis
- Multi-step research
Second on Artificial Analysis's index (60 against the leader's 65) at a quarter of the leader's list price, but only until 30 November, when Google doubles it.
Caveats: The $2 in / $10 out per million tokens (the unit vendors bill by) is introductory; Google says $4 / $20 applies after 30 November 2026, which will lower its score here. Google says it uses more text per task than Gemini 4 Argon, so the bill can run higher at the same list price. One independent test so far. The rankings quoted in Google's launch post are relayed by Google and not counted. In the Gemini app it is for Google AI Ultra subscribers only, per Google; commenters on lower plans and one enterprise account report they cannot select it yet.
Choose Claude Haiku 5.5 for
- Sorting and routing tickets
- Pulling fields out of invoices
- First-pass support replies
- Tagging and classifying records at volume
The pick for high-volume routine work: a twentieth of Claude Sonnet 5.5's list price, with users reporting near-perfect sorting in production, as long as each request stays short.
Caveats: The price is five times higher on any request that feeds it more than 100,000 tokens of text at once (a long document or a long back-and-forth). It scores 36 on Artificial Analysis's index against 55 for Sonnet 5.5: keep it off work that needs judgement. It ranks 2nd because price is 30% of the board's score and this is one of the two cheapest models here, not because of its test results.
What people running them say
Gemini 4 Carbon: On the Hacker News (a developer forum) thread about Google's launch, several commenters on the Pro and Plus plans say Carbon shows in the app as Ultra-only, one says their company's enterprise account cannot use it yet, and another says their workplace already finds Argon too expensive. None of this is verified, and it is too little to score.
Claude Haiku 5.5: A Hacker News (developer forum) thread on it passed a thousand upvotes in a day. The recurring reports are that it sorts items into fixed categories almost without error in live use and is 'noticeably smarter than GPT-6 Luna'; the recurring complaint is the higher price on requests over 100,000 tokens (the unit vendors bill by).
Questions people ask
Which is better, Gemini 4 Carbon or Claude Haiku 5.5?
Gemini 4 Carbon and Claude Haiku 5.5 are within three points on the Models at Work leaderboard, which we treat as a tie (75 vs 73 out of 100). On independent tests alone, Gemini 4 Carbon is ahead (92 vs 55). Claude Haiku 5.5 is cheaper: 1,000 support replies cost about $0.50 at list price, against $10 on Gemini 4 Carbon, which is 20 times as much. On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, one of the independent tests, Gemini 4 Carbon leads 60 to 36.
When should I choose Gemini 4 Carbon over Claude Haiku 5.5?
Choose Gemini 4 Carbon for reading and comparing large sets of dense documents, legal and finance analysis, multi-step research. Second on Artificial Analysis's index (60 against the leader's 65) at a quarter of the leader's list price, but only until 30 November, when Google doubles it.
When should I choose Claude Haiku 5.5 over Gemini 4 Carbon?
Choose Claude Haiku 5.5 for sorting and routing tickets, pulling fields out of invoices, first-pass support replies, tagging and classifying records at volume. The pick for high-volume routine work: a twentieth of Claude Sonnet 5.5's list price, with users reporting near-perfect sorting in production, as long as each request stays short.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 4 Carbon or Claude Haiku 5.5?
Gemini 4 Carbon costs $2 per million tokens it reads (input) and $10 per million tokens it writes (output) on Google's list price (Google: Gemini 4 Carbon is now available, read Nov 12, 2026). A token is about three-quarters of a word. Claude Haiku 5.5 costs $0.10 per million tokens it reads (input) and $0.50 per million tokens it writes (output) on Anthropic's list price (Claude pricing, read Nov 12, 2026). A token is about three-quarters of a word.
What do 1,000 jobs cost on Gemini 4 Carbon and Claude Haiku 5.5?
At list price: 1,000 support replies cost $10 on Gemini 4 Carbon and $0.50 on Claude Haiku 5.5; 1,000 documents processed cost $7 on Gemini 4 Carbon and $0.35 on Claude Haiku 5.5; 1,000 calls summarised cost $26 on Gemini 4 Carbon and $1.30 on Claude Haiku 5.5; 1,000 contracts reviewed cost $75 on Gemini 4 Carbon and $3.75 on Claude Haiku 5.5; 1,000 drafts written cost $11 on Gemini 4 Carbon and $0.55 on Claude Haiku 5.5. A product built on either model charges its own price on top.
Scores come from the Models at Work leaderboard: Score is 0 to 100 and computed, not typed. 40% is independent testing (Artificial Analysis, Arena, Scale, Epoch, Vals and others; each test is scaled against the best score on this board, and tests of real work, such as finished freelance projects or professional tasks, count double the exams). 30% is price: the vendor's list price for a typical mix of reading and writing, on a fixed scale from $0.05 to $60 per million tokens, so a model that costs a fifth as much gains real ground. 15% is what people report after running it, from Signals and linked threads. 15% is fit: how much text it can take in at once and where a business can get it (the products and clouds that carry it), with a small credit for open weights. A missing component drops out and the rest are reweighted. A model with no independent test yet is provisional and ranks below every measured one. Within three points is a tie. Vendor-published figures are labelled and never counted. Prices are vendor list prices where published; a typical mix assumes three parts reading to one part writing.