Claude Haiku 5.5 in Slack: Pricing, Benchmarks, and When to Use It (2026)

Claude Haiku 5.5 is the newest Haiku model from Anthropic, released on October 7, 2026 under the API ID claude-haiku-5-5. For prompts up to 100,000 tokens it lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.50 per million output tokens, which Anthropic says is 90% below Claude Haiku 4.5. Anthropic describes it as the model for high-volume, latency-sensitive tasks such as classification, extraction, and routing. Those are the jobs many Slack agents do all day: answering routine questions, sorting requests, and pulling facts out of documents.

In Runbear, the Claude Haiku model row follows the latest Haiku release, and as of October 2026 that is Haiku 5.5. This guide covers what the model costs, what changed from Haiku 4.5, where it fits in Slack, and how to switch an agent to it (or keep it on 4.5).

Claude Haiku 5.5 at a glance

Figures as of October 2026, from Anthropic's Claude Haiku 5.5 announcement, the models overview, and the Claude API pricing page.

What changed from Claude Haiku 4.5

• Price. Haiku 4.5 lists at $1 input and $5 output per million tokens. Haiku 5.5 is 90% lower for prompts up to 100,000 tokens and 50% lower above that. Anthropic estimates it costs around 75% less to run on average, and notes that it uses slightly more tokens per task, so the saving per task is smaller than the list-price gap.
• Effort control. Anthropic calls Haiku 5.5 the first Haiku-class model with an adjustable effort setting, so you can trade cost for more thinking on harder requests.
• Capability. Anthropic's published benchmarks show large gains over Haiku 4.5 (chart below). These are the vendor's numbers, so test on your own questions before you rely on them.
• Where it still trails. Anthropic says Sonnet 5.5 and Opus 5.5 remain better choices for complex agentic coding tasks.

What Claude Haiku 5.5 is good for in Slack

A fast, low-cost model fits Slack work where the answer is short, the request volume is high, and the hard part is finding the right source rather than reasoning through many steps. Three patterns fit that description.

1. Answering routine questions from your docs

IT, HR, and policy channels get the same questions every week. An agent connected to your knowledge sources (Runbear syncs Notion, Confluence, SharePoint, and Google Drive) can answer them in the thread, with the source page, and point people to a human when the docs do not cover the case.

2. Triage and routing

Classification is one of the tasks Anthropic names for Haiku 5.5. In Slack that looks like reading an incoming request, splitting it into separate issues, tagging the right owner, and filing a ticket in a tool like Linear, while leaving the customer reply to a person.

3. Extraction and short summaries

Pulling dates, amounts, owners, or next steps out of a long thread or document is the extraction work Anthropic lists for this model. It suits agents that turn a messy thread into a short structured reply.

When to pick Sonnet or Opus instead

Pick a larger model when the agent runs long multi-step tool sequences, does open-ended research, or writes code. Runbear's model guidance also notes that if an agent mostly answers from a knowledge base, the cheapest tier usually matches the most expensive one on answer quality while using a fraction of the credits.

Haiku 5.5 vs Sonnet 5.5 vs Opus 5.5 for team agents

Prices and positioning as of October 2026 from Anthropic's models overview. The last row is our guidance, not Anthropic's.

How to run Claude Haiku 5.5 in a Slack agent with Runbear

1. Open the agent and go to the Settings tab. The Model Selection section appears on Claude Agent SDK and Anthropic agents; Classic agents have no model setting.
2. Choose Claude Haiku. It carries a Stable badge, which means it follows the latest Haiku release. As of October 2026 that is Haiku 5.5, so agents already on this row now run Haiku 5.5.
3. To keep an agent on Haiku 4.5, choose it under Specific version instead. Specific versions can become unavailable when the provider retires them.
4. Decide how the model is billed. On Runbear-provided access, usage is billed in Runbear credits. If the agent uses its own Anthropic API key, Anthropic bills that key.

In Slack, the agent always answers @mentions and direct messages. Replying without an @mention and keyword triggers are optional per-channel settings. See the Slack integration page for setup, and the agent settings docs for every model the picker offers.

FAQ

Can I use Claude Haiku 5.5 in Slack?

Yes, through a Slack agent or app that lets you choose the model. In Runbear, pick the Claude Haiku row in the agent's Model Selection settings; as of October 2026 it runs Haiku 5.5.

How much does Claude Haiku 5.5 cost?

On the Claude API it lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.50 per million output tokens for prompts up to 100,000 tokens, and $0.50 and $2.50 for longer prompts (as of October 2026, Anthropic pricing). In Runbear, usage on Runbear-provided access is billed in Runbear credits rather than by Anthropic.

Is Claude Haiku 5.5 better than Haiku 4.5?

On Anthropic's published benchmarks it scores much higher, and its list price is lower. It uses slightly more tokens per task, so compare cost per task on your own workload rather than list price alone.

Can I keep my agent on Claude Haiku 4.5?

Yes. Choose Claude Haiku 4.5 under Specific version in the agent's Model Selection settings. Pinned versions can become unavailable when the provider retires them, so check back before Anthropic's retirement dates.

Runbear runs shared AI agents in Slack and Microsoft Teams that your team can build without code. See how teams use shared agents, compare the best AI agents for Slack, or read what Claude Team and Enterprise plans cost if you are weighing Claude subscriptions against an agent in Slack.