Claude Haiku 5.5 cuts small-model cost about 75%

What happened: Anthropic released Claude Haiku 5.5 on October 7 at 10 cents per million input tokens, about 75% cheaper than Haiku 4.5 and priced the same as OpenAI's GPT-6 Luna. It is the first Haiku with an adjustable effort setting. Anthropic also halved Sonnet 5.5 cache read prices and added monthly API credits for Max and Team subscribers.
The claim: Anthropic calls Haiku the cheapest, fastest and most capable small model ever released and reports strong results on its internal benchmarks.
Austin's take: Austin sees the cheap tier turning into a straight price war. He thinks cheaper, smarter small models mean intelligence can spread into everyday devices and robots, and that casual users would rarely hit usage limits.
Why it matters: With Anthropic and OpenAI now charging the same base rate for small models, the choice between them comes down to quality and fit rather than price.
What to do: If you build on small models, rerun your costs at the new pricing and test Haiku 5.5 against GPT-6 Luna on your own tasks before switching.
Not confirmed yet: The benchmark results are Anthropic's own and have not yet been tested by third parties.

The Loop