Compare / Qwen3.6-Plus vs GPT-5.2

Qwen3.6-Plus vs GPT-5.2

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 26 results on 6 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3.6-Plus Released 31 Mar 2026 · $0.33 in · $1.95 out
OpenAIGPT-5.2 Released 11 Dec 2025 · $1.75 in · $14.00 out
Qwen3.6-Plus wins 87 too close to callGPT-5.2 wins 11

Of the 26 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-5.2? The short answer

Pick GPT-5.2 if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 30.4 against 27.0). Pick Qwen3.6-Plus if cost matters more: it costs 6.6 times less per token.

  • Qwen3.6-Plus is cheaper: $0.73 against $4.81 per million tokens, 6.6 times less.
  • GPT-5.2 scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 30.4 against 27.0.
  • Qwen3.6-Plus is newer: released 31 Mar 2026, against 11 Dec 2025 for GPT-5.2.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Qwen3.6-Plus does better for agents and tool use, writing and sticking to the facts; GPT-5.2 for reasoning and knowledge.

Head to head

27.0
Intelligence Index
30.4
$0.73
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$4.81
1,000,000
Context window, tokens
400,000

Every fact side by side

Qwen3.6-PlusGPT-5.2
Price per million tokens$0.33 in · $1.95 out$1.75 in · $14.00 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.73$4.81
Cheapest host, blended–$4.81 (Azure)
Intelligence Index27.030.4
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second––
Context window1,000,000 tokens400,000 tokens
Released31 Mar 2026 (newer)11 Dec 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 57 of 164
Professional workReal tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects not measured 33 of 51
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 67 of 198 48 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 54 of 188 78 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 80 of 152 77 of 152

From our research

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-PlusGPT-5.2
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 76 · 88 of 387 measured 1,443 1,437high reasoning
Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 84 · 76 of 163 measured 1,438 1,442
Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 75 · 79 of 380 measured 1,446 1,444
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 62 · 49 of 243 measured 27.0 30.4xhigh reasoning
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 58 · 40 of 231 measured 88.2% 90.3%xhigh reasoning
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 84 · 50 of 242 measured 27.8% 37.7%xhigh reasoning
OpenHands Index reported by OpenHands Index · 3 results
Average% resolved, higher is better 16 · 10 of 34 measured 52.9%openhands 58.8%openhands
Front end (SWE-Bench Multimodal)% resolved, higher is better 20 · 20 of 34 measured 30.9%openhands 30.9%openhands
Greenfield (Commit0)% resolved, higher is better 14 · 6 of 34 measured 25.0%openhands 50.0%openhands
SimpleQA Verified (Epoch AI) reported by SimpleQA Verified (Epoch AI) · 1 result
Correct answers% of questions, higher is better 38 · 46 of 76 measured 44.1% 37.1%xhigh reasoning
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 49 · 78 of 230 measured 58.2thinking reasoning 49.4high reasoning
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 25 · 214 of 230 measured 8.0%thinking reasoning 76.0%high reasoning
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 96 · 17 of 230 measured 0.35no reasoning 0.40low reasoning
Vending-Bench 2 reported by Vending-Bench 2 · 1 result
Money after a yearUS dollars, higher is better 25 · 37 of 58 measured $5,115 $3,591
Show all 26 results (12 more)
MeasureQwen3.6-PlusGPT-5.2
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 4 results
Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 82 · 106 of 385 measured 1,407 1,391
Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 68 · 72 of 338 measured 1,476 1,475high reasoning
Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 74 · 84 of 387 measured 1,435 1,427high reasoning
Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 76 · 89 of 386 measured 1,423 1,412
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 5 results
τ-bench banking% of tasks, higher is better 48 · 73 of 121 measured 20.8% 11.1%no reasoning
IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 29 · 26 of 195 measured 75.2% 75.4%xhigh reasoning
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 54 · 19 of 233 measured 78.3% 82.7%xhigh reasoning
Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 23 · 15 of 190 measured 43.9% 47.0%xhigh reasoning
τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 7 · 60 of 193 measured 97.7% 84.8%xhigh reasoning
OpenHands Index reported by OpenHands Index · 3 results
Information gathering (GAIA)% resolved, higher is better 11 · 16 of 34 measured 72.1%openhands 65.5%openhands
Issue resolution (SWE-Bench)% resolved, higher is better 17 · 13 of 34 measured 74.2%openhands 74.6%openhands
Testing (SWT-Bench)% resolved, higher is better 21 · 10 of 34 measured 62.1%openhands 73.2%openhands

Quick answers

Is Qwen3.6-Plus better than GPT-5.2?

Pick GPT-5.2 if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 30.4 against 27.0). Pick Qwen3.6-Plus if cost matters more: it costs 6.6 times less per token.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.6-Plus or GPT-5.2?

Qwen3.6-Plus is cheaper: $0.73 against $4.81 per million tokens, 6.6 times less.

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3.6-Plus or GPT-5.2?

GPT-5.2 ranks 57 of 164 models on sale for multi-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls, against 63 for Qwen3.6-Plus.

Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3.6-Plus or GPT-5.2?

GPT-5.2 ranks 48 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 67 for Qwen3.6-Plus.

Which is better for writing, Qwen3.6-Plus or GPT-5.2?

Qwen3.6-Plus ranks 54 of 188 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 78 for GPT-5.2.

Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3.6-Plus or GPT-5.2?

GPT-5.2 ranks 77 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 80 for Qwen3.6-Plus.

Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3.6-Plus or GPT-5.2?

Qwen3.6-Plus: 1,000,000 tokens, against 400,000 for GPT-5.2.

Run Qwen3.6-Plus and GPT-5.2 on your own prompt

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