Compare / Qwen3.6-Plus vs Claude Opus 4.1

Qwen3.6-Plus vs Claude Opus 4.1

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 17 results on 3 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3.6-Plus Released 31 Mar 2026 · $0.33 in · $1.95 out
AnthropicClaude Opus 4.1 Released 5 Aug 2025 · $15.00 in · $75.00 out
Qwen3.6-Plus wins 74 too close to callClaude Opus 4.1 wins 6

Of the 17 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 Anthropic, every model from both labs.

Qwen3.6-Plus or Claude Opus 4.1? The short answer

Pick Qwen3.6-Plus: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 27.0 against 22.8) and costs less.

  • Qwen3.6-Plus is cheaper: $0.73 against $30.00 per million tokens, 41 times less.
  • Qwen3.6-Plus scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 27.0 against 22.8.
  • Qwen3.6-Plus is newer: released 31 Mar 2026, against 5 Aug 2025 for Claude Opus 4.1.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Qwen3.6-Plus does better for reasoning and knowledge; Claude Opus 4.1 for writing.

Head to head

27.0
Intelligence Index
22.8
$0.73
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$30.00
1,000,000
Context window, tokens
200,000

Every fact side by side

Qwen3.6-PlusClaude Opus 4.1
Price per million tokens$0.33 in · $1.95 out$15.00 in · $75.00 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.73$30.00
Cheapest host, blended––
Intelligence Index27.022.8
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second––
Context window1,000,000 tokens200,000 tokens
Released31 Mar 2026 (newer)5 Aug 2025
WeightsClosedClosed
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 63 of 164 not measured
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 67 of 198 102 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 54 of 188 33 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 80 of 152 105 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.

MeasureQwen3.6-PlusClaude Opus 4.1
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 76 · 69 of 387 measured 1,443 1,450thinking-16k reasoning
Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 84 · 88 of 163 measured 1,438 1,435
Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 75 · 70 of 380 measured 1,446 1,447thinking-16k reasoning
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 62 · 87 of 243 measured 27.0 22.8thinking reasoning
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 58 · 106 of 231 measured 88.2% 80.9%thinking reasoning
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 84 · 137 of 242 measured 27.8% 12.5%thinking reasoning
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 49 · 10 of 230 measured 58.2thinking reasoning 69.9no reasoning
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 25 · 8 of 230 measured 8.0%thinking reasoning 3.0%no reasoning
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 96 · 38 of 230 measured 0.35no reasoning 0.38thinking reasoning
Show all 17 results (8 more)
MeasureQwen3.6-PlusClaude Opus 4.1
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 4 results
Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 82 · 40 of 385 measured 1,407 1,446thinking-16k reasoning
Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 68 · 59 of 338 measured 1,476 1,482thinking-16k reasoning
Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 74 · 43 of 387 measured 1,435 1,458thinking-16k reasoning
Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 76 · 51 of 386 measured 1,423 1,446thinking-16k reasoning
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 4 results
IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 29 · 90 of 195 measured 75.2% 55.4%thinking reasoning
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 54 · 73 of 233 measured 78.3% 76.0%thinking reasoning
Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 23 · 55 of 190 measured 43.9% 34.3%thinking reasoning
τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 7 · 81 of 193 measured 97.7% 71.4%thinking reasoning

Quick answers

Is Qwen3.6-Plus better than Claude Opus 4.1?

Pick Qwen3.6-Plus: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 27.0 against 22.8) and costs less.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.6-Plus or Claude Opus 4.1?

Qwen3.6-Plus is cheaper: $0.73 against $30.00 per million tokens, 41 times less.

Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3.6-Plus or Claude Opus 4.1?

Qwen3.6-Plus ranks 67 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 102 for Claude Opus 4.1.

Which is better for writing, Qwen3.6-Plus or Claude Opus 4.1?

Claude Opus 4.1 ranks 33 of 188 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 54 for Qwen3.6-Plus.

Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3.6-Plus or Claude Opus 4.1?

Qwen3.6-Plus ranks 80 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 105 for Claude Opus 4.1.

Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3.6-Plus or Claude Opus 4.1?

Qwen3.6-Plus: 1,000,000 tokens, against 200,000 for Claude Opus 4.1.

Run Qwen3.6-Plus and Claude Opus 4.1 on your own prompt

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