Claude 3.5 Haiku vs Gemma 3 12B
Claude 3.5 Haiku and Gemma 3 12B are closely matched at 5.8 and 5.8 on the LLM Stats Score. Gemma 3 12B is 25.6x cheaper per token.
Anthropic · Google · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Claude 3.5 Haiku and Gemma 3 12B are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 5.8 and 5.8.
In the 4 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Claude 3.5 Haiku wins 3; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.
On price, Gemma 3 12B is roughly 25.6x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.
Claude 3.5 Haiku also accepts a larger context window (200,000 input tokens), making it the stronger choice for long documents and large codebases.
Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose Claude 3.5 Haiku
- you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 3 of 4 exact shared results
- you process long inputs — it offers a 200,000 token context window
Choose Gemma 3 12B
- cost matters — it's about 25.6x cheaper per token
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Mar 2025
- you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Capability indexes
Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks
Individual benchmarks
9 reported for Claude 3.5 Haiku · 26 for Gemma 3 12B
Claude 3.5 Haiku outperforms in 3 benchmarks (GPQA, HumanEval, MMLU-Pro), while Gemma 3 12B is better at 1 benchmark (MATH).
Claude 3.5 Haiku shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.
Human preference
Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores
Pricing Analysis
Price comparison per million tokens
For input processing, Claude 3.5 Haiku ($0.80/1M tokens) is 16.0x more expensive than Gemma 3 12B ($0.05/1M tokens).
For output processing, Claude 3.5 Haiku ($4.00/1M tokens) is 40.0x more expensive than Gemma 3 12B ($0.10/1M tokens).
In conclusion, Claude 3.5 Haiku is more expensive than Gemma 3 12B.*
* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Claude 3.5 Haiku accepts 200,000 input tokens compared to Gemma 3 12B's 131,072 tokens. Claude 3.5 Haiku can generate longer responses up to 200,000 tokens, while Gemma 3 12B is limited to 131,072 tokens.
Input capabilities
Documented input modalities across available providers
Gemma 3 12B supports multimodal inputs, whereas Claude 3.5 Haiku does not.
Gemma 3 12B can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
Claude 3.5 Haiku
Gemma 3 12B
License
Usage and distribution terms
Claude 3.5 Haiku is licensed under a proprietary license, while Gemma 3 12B uses Gemma.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
Proprietary
Closed source
Gemma
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Claude 3.5 Haiku was released on 2024-10-22, while Gemma 3 12B was released on 2025-03-12.
Gemma 3 12B is 5 months newer than Claude 3.5 Haiku.
Oct 22, 2024
1.9 years ago
Mar 12, 2025
1.5 years ago
4mo newerKnowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.
Unable to compare the recency of their training data.
Provider Availability
Claude 3.5 Haiku is available from Bedrock, Google, Anthropic. Gemma 3 12B is available from DeepInfra.
Claude 3.5 Haiku
Gemma 3 12B
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Claude 3.5 Haiku and Gemma 3 12B side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Claude 3.5 Haiku vs Gemma 3 12B.