Compare / Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 vs Grok 4.3

Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 vs Grok 4.3

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 16 results on 3 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 Released 29 Jul 2025 · $0.090 in · $0.30 out
xAIGrok 4.3 Released 17 Apr 2026 · $1.25 in · $2.50 out
Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 wins 1Grok 4.3 wins 15

Of the 16 results both models have, the better value on each. Results whose reported ranges overlap are too close to call.

Results as of 9 October 2026 (catalogue release 2026-10-09-dd620e778ac5). See also Alibaba vs xAI, every model from both labs.

Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 or Grok 4.3? The short answer

Pick Grok 4.3 if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 24.9 against 7.5). Pick Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 if cost matters more: it costs 11 times less per token.

  • Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 is cheaper: $0.14 against $1.56 per million tokens, 11 times less.
  • Grok 4.3 scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 24.9 against 7.5.
  • Grok 4.3 is newer: released 17 Apr 2026, against 29 Jul 2025 for Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Grok 4.3 does better for reasoning and knowledge and writing.

Head to head

7.5
Intelligence Index
24.9
$0.14
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$1.56
262,144
Context window, tokens
1,000,000

Every fact side by side

Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507Grok 4.3
Price per million tokens$0.090 in · $0.30 out$1.25 in · $2.50 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.14$1.56
Cheapest host, blended$0.084 (StreamLake)$1.56 (xAI)
Cached input, per million–$0.20 cached input
Intelligence Index7.524.9
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second––
Context window262,144 tokens1,000,000 tokens
Released29 Jul 202517 Apr 2026 (newer)
WeightsOpenClosed
Developer based inChinathe US

Prices are the developer's list price where we have read it, otherwise the typical host on OpenRouter; see every model's price. Intelligence and speed from Artificial Analysis.

Which is better for what

Each model's rank among the models on sale today, for each kind of work, from our own benchmarks and licensed sources. Further right is better; the better rank is in green.

Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls 75 of 164 111 of 164
Professional workReal tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects not measured 49 of 51
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 159 of 198 55 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 140 of 188 57 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers not measured 111 of 152

Every shared result

Each model's best result on every measure both have, grouped by benchmark, with the setting that produced it. Under each measure, every model that benchmark has measured is a grey tick, best to the right, so you can see where the two sit in the field. The headline measures of each benchmark come first; the rest are under "Show all". Green marks the better value; where a source reports ranges that overlap, neither is marked.

MeasureQwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507Grok 4.3
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 162 · 82 of 387 measured 1,383 1,441
Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 144 · 90 of 380 measured 1,397 1,439
Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 186 · 68 of 385 measured 1,319 1,422
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 209 · 77 of 243 measured 7.5 24.9high reasoning
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 172 · 41 of 231 measured 65.9% 90.1%high reasoning
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 173 · 53 of 242 measured 6.9% 37.2%high reasoning
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 163 · 50 of 230 measured 27.9 57.7
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 57 · 124 of 230 measured 13.0% 21.0%
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 187 · 134 of 230 measured 0.31 0.34
Show all 16 results (7 more)
MeasureQwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507Grok 4.3
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 163 · 96 of 338 measured 1,395 1,452
Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 164 · 103 of 387 measured 1,367 1,414
Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 176 · 74 of 386 measured 1,342 1,424
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 4 results
IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 168 · 1 of 195 measured 33.1% 83.3%medium reasoning
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 191 · 78 of 233 measured 26.3% 75.0%medium reasoning
Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 147 · 39 of 190 measured 6.1% 37.9%high reasoning
τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 185 · 7 of 193 measured 10.2% 97.7%high reasoning

Quick answers

Is Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 better than Grok 4.3?

Pick Grok 4.3 if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 24.9 against 7.5). Pick Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 if cost matters more: it costs 11 times less per token.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 or Grok 4.3?

Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 is cheaper: $0.14 against $1.56 per million tokens, 11 times less.

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 or Grok 4.3?

Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 ranks 75 of 164 models on sale for multi-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls, against 111 for Grok 4.3.

Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 or Grok 4.3?

Grok 4.3 ranks 55 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 159 for Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507.

Which is better for writing, Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 or Grok 4.3?

Grok 4.3 ranks 57 of 188 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 140 for Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507.

Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 or Grok 4.3?

Grok 4.3: 1,000,000 tokens, against 262,144 for Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507.

Run Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 and Grok 4.3 on your own prompt

Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.