Claude Haiku 5.5 Max vs Gemini 4 Argon compared

Gemini 4 Argon leads the intelligence index 50.4 to 36.5. Price per token, response speed and when to pick each.

Metric	Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max)	Gemini 4 Argon (High)
Intelligence Index	36.5	50.4
Input price (per 1M tokens)	$0.10	$4.00
Output price (per 1M tokens)	$0.50	$20.00
Output speed (tokens/s)	233	89
Time to first token	4.6 min	51s
Release date	2026-10-07	2026-09-30

Metric

Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max)

Gemini 4 Argon (High)

Intelligence Index

36.5

50.4

Input price (per 1M tokens)

$0.10

$4.00

Output price (per 1M tokens)

$0.50

$20.00

Output speed (tokens/s)

233

Time to first token

4.6 min

51s

Release date

2026-10-07

2026-09-30

Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) (Anthropic) and Gemini 4 Argon (High) (Google) are not peers on the headline index, which makes the trade-offs the interesting part. Everything below is read from the benchmark, price and speed data in Franklin AI's catalogue; nothing here comes from a hands-on test. The clearest gap is on the bill: Gemini 4 Argon is 40 times the blended price of Claude Haiku 5.5 Max.

Cost: Claude Haiku 5.5 Max is cheaper

Claude Haiku 5.5 Max lists $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.50 per million output tokens; Gemini 4 Argon lists $4.00 and $20.00. For output tokens, Gemini 4 Argon is 40 times the price of Claude Haiku 5.5 Max.

For a sample workload of 1 million input tokens and 200,000 output tokens, Claude Haiku 5.5 Max would cost $0.20 and Gemini 4 Argon $8.00, a difference of $7.80. For a chat app with 50,000 sessions of 800 input and 300 output tokens, Claude Haiku 5.5 Max would come in 98% lower: $11.50 for Claude Haiku 5.5 Max against $460 for Gemini 4 Argon. Blended at three input tokens per output token, the effective rates are $0.20 for Claude Haiku 5.5 Max and $8.00 for Gemini 4 Argon.

Speed and latency

Once a response is under way, Claude Haiku 5.5 Max produces roughly 233 tokens per second against 89 tokens per second for Gemini 4 Argon. Claude Haiku 5.5 Max is ahead by 161% on throughput. The wait for the first token averages 4.6 minutes on Claude Haiku 5.5 Max against 51 seconds on Gemini 4 Argon. On total time, Gemini 4 Argon wins at ordinary lengths; Claude Haiku 5.5 Max's higher throughput only pays off beyond about 33,000 tokens. A first-token wait of that length suits background work better than live conversation.

For a 1,000-token response, first token plus generation comes to roughly 4.7 minutes on Claude Haiku 5.5 Max and 62 seconds on Gemini 4 Argon.

Overall capability: 13.9 points apart

On the intelligence index, Claude Haiku 5.5 Max scores 36.5 against 50.4 for Gemini 4 Argon. A difference this size usually separates one tier of model from the next.

Among 109 active scored models, Claude Haiku 5.5 Max sits 37th and Gemini 4 Argon 15th.

The catalogue does not yet split either model's score into coding and math indexes.

Release timing

The release dates are September 30, 2026 for Gemini 4 Argon and October 7, 2026 for Claude Haiku 5.5 Max, 7 days apart. That is close enough to count them as the same generation.

Cost per point of intelligence

Per point of intelligence index, Claude Haiku 5.5 Max costs $0.0055 of blended price per million tokens and Gemini 4 Argon $0.16. So Gemini 4 Argon buys its higher score at a premium, while Claude Haiku 5.5 Max is the value pick, paying 97% less per point.

Quick answers

Is Claude Haiku 5.5 Max better than Gemini 4 Argon?

It depends on what you need: Gemini 4 Argon scores higher on the intelligence index, 50.4 to 36.5; Claude Haiku 5.5 Max is 98% cheaper on blended price; Claude Haiku 5.5 Max streams output 2.6 times as fast; and Gemini 4 Argon reaches its first token sooner.

Who makes Claude Haiku 5.5 Max and Gemini 4 Argon?

Claude Haiku 5.5 Max is made by Anthropic and Gemini 4 Argon by Google. Claude Haiku 5.5 Max was released on October 7, 2026 and Gemini 4 Argon on September 30, 2026.

Where do these numbers come from?

The figures are the recorded benchmark, price and speed data in Franklin AI's model catalogue. This page is written from that data automatically; neither model was tested by hand for it.

Which is newer, Claude Haiku 5.5 Max or Gemini 4 Argon?

Claude Haiku 5.5 Max is newer. It was released on October 7, 2026, 7 days after Gemini 4 Argon (September 30, 2026).

How much do Claude Haiku 5.5 Max and Gemini 4 Argon cost?

Claude Haiku 5.5 Max is cheaper on a blended basis. Claude Haiku 5.5 Max lists $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.50 per million output tokens; Gemini 4 Argon lists $4.00 and $20.00. For 1 million input and 200,000 output tokens that is $0.20 against $8.00.

Final whistle

Bottom line: it is close, with Claude Haiku 5.5 Max and Gemini 4 Argon each holding a real advantage. Pick Claude Haiku 5.5 Max if cost matters ($0.50 against $20.00 per million output tokens) and you generate very long outputs, beyond about 33,000 tokens. Pick Gemini 4 Argon if you need the higher overall score (50.4 against 36.5) and users are waiting on the first word.

Where the numbers come from

The scores, speed and prices in this comparison come from independent third-party model evaluations that Franklin AI syncs each day, and the article was written from a snapshot of them. For the latest results, open the Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) and Gemini 4 Argon (High) pages. The AI Benchmark methodology explains how that data is collected and shown.