Compare / Qwen3.6-Plus vs GPT-5
Qwen3.6-Plus vs GPT-5
Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 21 results on 4 sources that measured both models.
Of the 21 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 OpenAI, every model from both labs.
Qwen3.6-Plus or GPT-5? The short answer
Pick Qwen3.6-Plus: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 27.0 against 23.0) and costs less.
- Qwen3.6-Plus is cheaper: $0.73 against $3.44 per million tokens, 4.7 times less.
- Qwen3.6-Plus scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 27.0 against 23.0.
- Qwen3.6-Plus is newer: released 31 Mar 2026, against 7 Aug 2025 for GPT-5.
- On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Qwen3.6-Plus does better for reasoning and knowledge and writing.
Head to head
Every fact side by side
| Qwen3.6-Plus | GPT-5 | |
|---|---|---|
| Price per million tokens | $0.33 in · $1.95 out | $1.25 in · $10.00 out |
| Blended (3 in : 1 out) | $0.73 | $3.44 |
| Cheapest host, blended | – | $3.44 (Azure) |
| Intelligence Index | 27.0 | 23.0 |
| Spring Prompt overall | – | – |
| Output speed, tokens a second | – | – |
| Context window | 1,000,000 tokens | 400,000 tokens |
| Released | 31 Mar 2026 (newer) | 7 Aug 2025 |
| Weights | Closed | Closed |
| Developer based in | China | the 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.
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.
| Measure | Qwen3.6-Plus | GPT-5 |
|---|---|---|
| Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results | ||
| Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 76 · 90 of 387 measured | 1,443 | 1,435high reasoning |
| Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 84 · 111 of 163 measured | 1,438 | 1,421high reasoning |
| Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 75 · 118 of 380 measured | 1,446 | 1,413high reasoning |
| Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results | ||
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 62 · 85 of 243 measured | 27.0 | 23.0high reasoning |
| GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 58 · 77 of 231 measured | 88.2% | 85.4%high reasoning |
| Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 84 · 79 of 242 measured | 27.8% | 28.5%high reasoning |
| SimpleQA Verified (Epoch AI) reported by SimpleQA Verified (Epoch AI) · 1 result | ||
| Correct answers% of questions, higher is better 38 · 24 of 76 measured | 44.1% | 50.1%high reasoning |
| UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results | ||
| Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 49 · 68 of 230 measured | 58.2thinking reasoning | 53.5high reasoning |
| Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 25 · 207 of 230 measured | 8.0%thinking reasoning | 58.0%high reasoning |
| Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 96 · 20 of 230 measured | 0.35no reasoning | 0.39high reasoning |
Show all 21 results (11 more)
| Measure | Qwen3.6-Plus | GPT-5 |
|---|---|---|
| Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 4 results | ||
| Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 82 · 128 of 385 measured | 1,407 | 1,373high reasoning |
| Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 68 · 90 of 338 measured | 1,476 | 1,459high reasoning |
| Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 74 · 110 of 387 measured | 1,435 | 1,410high reasoning |
| Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 76 · 113 of 386 measured | 1,423 | 1,396high reasoning |
| Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 7 results | ||
| Terminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks, higher is better 47 · 78 of 130 measured | 61.4% | 35.2%high reasoning |
| τ-bench banking% of tasks, higher is better 48 · 45 of 121 measured | 20.8% | 22.1%high reasoning |
| Artificial Analysis Coding Indexindex score, higher is better 50 · 76 of 131 measured | 54.5 | 37.8high reasoning |
| IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 29 · 36 of 195 measured | 75.2% | 73.1%high reasoning |
| Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 54 · 58 of 233 measured | 78.3% | 78.2%high reasoning |
| Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 23 · 39 of 190 measured | 43.9% | 37.9%medium reasoning |
| τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 7 · 54 of 193 measured | 97.7% | 86.6%medium reasoning |
Compare them with other models
Quick answers
Is Qwen3.6-Plus better than GPT-5?
Pick Qwen3.6-Plus: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 27.0 against 23.0) and costs less.
Which is cheaper, Qwen3.6-Plus or GPT-5?
Qwen3.6-Plus is cheaper: $0.73 against $3.44 per million tokens, 4.7 times less.
Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3.6-Plus or GPT-5?
Qwen3.6-Plus ranks 63 of 164 models on sale for multi-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls, against 78 for GPT-5.
Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3.6-Plus or GPT-5?
Qwen3.6-Plus ranks 67 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 76 for GPT-5.
Which is better for writing, Qwen3.6-Plus or GPT-5?
Qwen3.6-Plus ranks 54 of 188 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 70 for GPT-5.
Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3.6-Plus or GPT-5?
Qwen3.6-Plus ranks 80 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 99 for GPT-5.
Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3.6-Plus or GPT-5?
Qwen3.6-Plus: 1,000,000 tokens, against 400,000 for GPT-5.
Run Qwen3.6-Plus and GPT-5 on your own prompt
Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.