Compare / Qwen3.6-Plus vs o3
Qwen3.6-Plus vs o3
Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 18 results on 4 sources that measured both models.
Of the 18 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 o3? The short answer
Pick Qwen3.6-Plus: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 27.0 against 20.2) and costs less.
- Qwen3.6-Plus is cheaper: $0.73 against $3.50 per million tokens, 4.8 times less.
- Qwen3.6-Plus scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 27.0 against 20.2.
- Qwen3.6-Plus is newer: released 31 Mar 2026, against 16 Apr 2025 for o3.
- On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Qwen3.6-Plus does better for reasoning and knowledge.
Head to head
Every fact side by side
| Qwen3.6-Plus | o3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Price per million tokens | $0.33 in · $1.95 out | $2.00 in · $8.00 out |
| Blended (3 in : 1 out) | $0.73 | $3.50 |
| Cheapest host, blended | – | – |
| Intelligence Index | 27.0 | 20.2 |
| Spring Prompt overall | – | – |
| Output speed, tokens a second | – | 123 |
| Context window | 1,000,000 tokens | 200,000 tokens |
| Released | 31 Mar 2026 (newer) | 16 Apr 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 | o3 |
|---|---|---|
| Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results | ||
| Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 76 · 95 of 387 measured | 1,443 | 1,432 |
| Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 84 · 131 of 163 measured | 1,438 | 1,405 |
| Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 75 · 99 of 380 measured | 1,446 | 1,427 |
| Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results | ||
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 62 · 107 of 243 measured | 27.0 | 20.2 |
| GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 58 · 98 of 231 measured | 88.2% | 82.7% |
| Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 84 · 109 of 242 measured | 27.8% | 20.1% |
| SimpleQA Verified (Epoch AI) reported by SimpleQA Verified (Epoch AI) · 1 result | ||
| Correct answers% of questions, higher is better 38 · 25 of 76 measured | 44.1% | 49.4%high reasoning |
| UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results | ||
| Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 49 · 24 of 230 measured | 58.2thinking reasoning | 66.8medium reasoning |
| Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 25 · 91 of 230 measured | 8.0%thinking reasoning | 18.0%high reasoning |
| Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 96 · 198 of 230 measured | 0.35no reasoning | 0.31high reasoning |
Show all 18 results (8 more)
| Measure | Qwen3.6-Plus | o3 |
|---|---|---|
| Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 4 results | ||
| Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 82 · 116 of 385 measured | 1,407 | 1,383 |
| Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 68 · 101 of 338 measured | 1,476 | 1,449 |
| Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 74 · 120 of 387 measured | 1,435 | 1,403 |
| Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 76 · 114 of 386 measured | 1,423 | 1,396 |
| Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 4 results | ||
| IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 29 · 46 of 195 measured | 75.2% | 71.4% |
| Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 54 · 79 of 233 measured | 78.3% | 74.7% |
| Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 23 · 44 of 190 measured | 43.9% | 37.1% |
| τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 7 · 69 of 193 measured | 97.7% | 80.7% |
Compare them with other models
Quick answers
Is Qwen3.6-Plus better than o3?
Pick Qwen3.6-Plus: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 27.0 against 20.2) and costs less.
Which is cheaper, Qwen3.6-Plus or o3?
Qwen3.6-Plus is cheaper: $0.73 against $3.50 per million tokens, 4.8 times less.
Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3.6-Plus or o3?
o3 ranks 13 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 o3?
Qwen3.6-Plus ranks 67 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 99 for o3.
Which is better for writing, Qwen3.6-Plus or o3?
o3 ranks 50 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 o3?
Qwen3.6-Plus ranks 80 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 91 for o3.
Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3.6-Plus or o3?
Qwen3.6-Plus: 1,000,000 tokens, against 200,000 for o3.
Run Qwen3.6-Plus and o3 on your own prompt
Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.