Claude Haiku 4.5 Leaves the Model Picker on October 29

Anthropic will complete the Claude Haiku 4.5 removal from the Claude model selector on October 29, according to the company’s help article and user email from October 15. From that date, Haiku 5.5 becomes the Haiku option for the plans and products covered by the change. The switch is a selector-level replacement, not a shutdown of the older model everywhere.

Who loses the old option

Free, Pro and Max subscribers are the affected group. The change reaches their Claude chat experience across the web, desktop and mobile apps, and it also applies inside Claude Cowork and Claude Design. For those users, Haiku 4.5 will no longer appear once the removal takes effect.

Several groups sit outside the change. Team and Enterprise plans keep Haiku 4.5. Claude Code is exempt. API access to Haiku 4.5 is also unaffected, so developers using the model through the API retain their existing route to it.

What happens to old conversations

Nothing is deleted. Anthropic’s help article states that existing Haiku 4.5 chats remain in the account after the removal. The difference is behavioral: continuing one of those conversations after October 29 will use Haiku 5.5 rather than the model that started the thread.

Users who want a different model for the rest of a conversation can switch mid-chat to Sonnet or Opus. That option remains available after the Haiku replacement, giving affected subscribers a way to change course without starting over.

Preparing before the deadline

Haiku 4.5 remains selectable until October 29, which leaves a window to compare it directly with Haiku 5.5. Anthropic advises trying the newer model before the switch. A direct side-by-side comparison is possible only while both models are still in the selector.

The newer model may phrase or shorten output differently, and it may ask follow-up questions in a different way. Users with fixed routines built around Haiku 4.5 should review saved project instructions and style settings rather than assuming the same prompts will produce the same shape of response.

Haiku 5.5 has been available on the free plan since early October, so some users have already had a chance to test it. The October 15 announcement gave the wider affected audience notice ahead of the October 29 cutoff.

Anthropic has not specified the exact time of removal on October 29. It also has not said whether Haiku 4.5 will remain available elsewhere for consumers, whether the exemptions are permanent, or how Haiku 5.5 is priced or performs beyond the behavioral differences noted in its guidance.