Baidu: ERNIE 4.5 21B A3B Thinking
Analysis Summary
ERNIE 4.5 21B A3B Thinking is a compact mixture-of-experts model from Baidu, positioned as a cost-efficient reasoning variant. With input pricing at $0.07/1M and output at $0.28/1M, it sits at the budget end of the market. However, no benchmark data is available for this model, making it impossible to assess reasoning quality, coding capability, or instruction-following reliability.
Without measurable performance data, it is difficult to recommend for any specific business workload. The 131K context window is adequate for document-level tasks, but the absence of tool use or function calling flags limits its utility in agentic or structured-output pipelines.
Businesses should treat this as an unproven option until benchmark results are published. It may suit low-stakes, high-volume text tasks where cost is the primary driver, but adoption carries meaningful uncertainty.
Assessed June 30, 2026
Editorial notes
Baidu's ERNIE 4.5 21B A3B Thinking has no benchmark data available, limiting any capability assessment; pricing is low but the model is unproven in measurable terms.
Rankings consider pricing, capabilities, benchmarks, and real-world applicability and are refreshed as new models launch. Feedback?
Performance Profile
How Baidu: ERNIE 4.5 21B A3B Thinking compares
Its 131K-token context window is larger than 59% of the models we list. At $0.07 per million input tokens it is cheaper than 70% of comparable models.
About Baidu: ERNIE 4.5 21B A3B Thinking
ERNIE-4.5-21B-A3B-Thinking is Baidu's upgraded lightweight MoE model, refined to boost reasoning depth and quality for top-tier performance in logical puzzles, math, science, coding, text generation, and expert-level academic benchmarks.
How does Baidu: ERNIE 4.5 21B A3B Thinking stack up?
Compare side-by-side with other legacy models.
Model Information
| OpenRouter ID |
baidu/ernie-4.5-21b-a3b-thinking
|
| Provider | baidu |
| Release Date | October 9, 2025 |
| Context Length | 131,072 tokens |
| Max Completion | 65,536 tokens |
| Status | Active |
Pricing
| Token Type | Cost per 1M tokens | Cost per 1K tokens |
|---|---|---|
| Input | $0.07 | $0.000070 |
| Output | $0.28 | $0.000280 |
External Resources
Frequently asked questions about Baidu: ERNIE 4.5 21B A3B Thinking
How much does Baidu: ERNIE 4.5 21B A3B Thinking cost?
Baidu: ERNIE 4.5 21B A3B Thinking costs $0.07 per million input tokens and $0.28 per million output tokens.
What is the context window of Baidu: ERNIE 4.5 21B A3B Thinking?
Baidu: ERNIE 4.5 21B A3B Thinking has a context window of 131,072 tokens (131K).
Who created Baidu: ERNIE 4.5 21B A3B Thinking?
Baidu: ERNIE 4.5 21B A3B Thinking is developed by Baidu and was released on October 9, 2025.
