Compare / Qwen3.6-Plus vs GPT-5.6 Sol

Qwen3.6-Plus vs GPT-5.6 Sol

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 22 results on 5 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3.6-Plus Released 31 Mar 2026 · $0.33 in · $1.95 out
OpenAIGPT-5.6 Sol Released 9 Jul 2026 · $4.00 in · $20.00 out
Qwen3.6-Plus wins 2GPT-5.6 Sol wins 20

Of the 22 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-5.6 Sol? The short answer

Pick GPT-5.6 Sol if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 47.0 against 27.0). Pick Qwen3.6-Plus if cost matters more: it costs 11 times less per token.

  • Qwen3.6-Plus is cheaper: $0.73 against $8.00 per million tokens, 11 times less.
  • GPT-5.6 Sol scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 47.0 against 27.0.
  • GPT-5.6 Sol is newer: released 9 Jul 2026, against 31 Mar 2026 for Qwen3.6-Plus.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: GPT-5.6 Sol does better for agents and tool use, reasoning and knowledge, writing and sticking to the facts.

Head to head

27.0
Intelligence Index
47.0
$0.73
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$8.00
1,000,000
Context window, tokens
1,050,000

Every fact side by side

Qwen3.6-PlusGPT-5.6 Sol
Price per million tokens$0.33 in · $1.95 out$4.00 in · $20.00 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.73$8.00
Cheapest host, blended–$4.00 (OpenAI)
Cached input, per million–$0.40 cached input
Intelligence Index27.047.0
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second––
Context window1,000,000 tokens1,050,000 tokens
Released31 Mar 20269 Jul 2026 (newer)
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 8 of 164
Professional workReal tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects not measured 1 of 51
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 67 of 198 7 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 54 of 188 21 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 80 of 152 48 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-PlusGPT-5.6 Sol
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 76 · 17 of 387 measured 1,443 1,484xhigh reasoning
Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 84 · 18 of 163 measured 1,438 1,476xhigh reasoning
Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 75 · 15 of 380 measured 1,446 1,485xhigh reasoning
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 62 · 11 of 243 measured 27.0 47.0max reasoning
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 58 · 5 of 231 measured 88.2% 94.1%max reasoning
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 84 · 9 of 242 measured 27.8% 49.5%max reasoning
SimpleQA Verified (Epoch AI) reported by SimpleQA Verified (Epoch AI) · 1 result
Correct answers% of questions, higher is better 38 · 7 of 76 measured 44.1% 69.7%max reasoning
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 49 · 27 of 230 measured 58.2thinking reasoning 65.4medium reasoning
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 25 · 3 of 230 measured 8.0%thinking reasoning 1.0%xhigh reasoning
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 96 · 43 of 230 measured 0.35no reasoning 0.37xhigh reasoning
Vending-Bench 2 reported by Vending-Bench 2 · 1 result
Money after a yearUS dollars, higher is better 25 · 5 of 58 measured $5,115 $9,619
Show all 22 results (11 more)
MeasureQwen3.6-PlusGPT-5.6 Sol
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 4 results
Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 82 · 16 of 385 measured 1,407 1,468xhigh reasoning
Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 68 · 8 of 338 measured 1,476 1,535xhigh reasoning
Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 74 · 9 of 387 measured 1,435 1,490xhigh reasoning
Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 76 · 9 of 386 measured 1,423 1,481xhigh reasoning
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 7 results
Terminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks, higher is better 47 · 3 of 130 measured 61.4% 89.5%xhigh reasoning
τ-bench banking% of tasks, higher is better 48 · 14 of 121 measured 20.8% 44.3%max reasoning
Artificial Analysis Coding Indexindex score, higher is better 50 · 2 of 131 measured 54.5 78.3xhigh reasoning
IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 29 · 38 of 195 measured 75.2% 72.7%max reasoning
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 54 · 6 of 233 measured 78.3% 84.0%max reasoning
Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 23 · 1 of 190 measured 43.9% 65.9%max reasoning
τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 7 · 59 of 193 measured 97.7% 85.1%max reasoning

Quick answers

Is Qwen3.6-Plus better than GPT-5.6 Sol?

Pick GPT-5.6 Sol if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 47.0 against 27.0). Pick Qwen3.6-Plus if cost matters more: it costs 11 times less per token.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.6-Plus or GPT-5.6 Sol?

Qwen3.6-Plus is cheaper: $0.73 against $8.00 per million tokens, 11 times less.

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3.6-Plus or GPT-5.6 Sol?

GPT-5.6 Sol ranks 8 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-5.6 Sol?

GPT-5.6 Sol ranks 7 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-5.6 Sol?

GPT-5.6 Sol ranks 21 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 GPT-5.6 Sol?

GPT-5.6 Sol ranks 48 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-5.6 Sol?

GPT-5.6 Sol: 1,050,000 tokens, against 1,000,000 for Qwen3.6-Plus.

Run Qwen3.6-Plus and GPT-5.6 Sol on your own prompt

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