Compare / Qwen3.8-Max vs Claude Opus 5.5
Qwen3.8-Max vs Claude Opus 5.5
Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 6 results on 2 sources that measured both models.
Results as of 8 October 2026 (catalogue release 2026-10-08-4199ce0620fe).
Qwen3.8-Max or Claude Opus 5.5? The short answer
Pick Claude Opus 5.5: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 57.6 against 40.2) at about the same price.
- Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 57.6 against 40.2.
- Claude Opus 5.5 is newer: released 22 Sep 2026, against 3 Aug 2026 for Qwen3.8-Max.
- On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Claude Opus 5.5 does better for agents and tool use, reasoning and knowledge and sticking to the facts.
At a glance
| Qwen3.8-Max | Claude Opus 5.5 | |
|---|---|---|
| Price per million tokens | Not on sale | $4.00 in · $20.00 out |
| Blended (3 in : 1 out) | – | $8.00 |
| Cheapest host, blended | – | $8.00 (Amazon Bedrock) |
| Cached input, per million | – | $0.20 cached input |
| Intelligence Index | 40.2 | 57.6 |
| Spring Prompt overall | – | 85 |
| Output speed, tokens a second | – | 97 |
| Context window | – | 1,000,000 tokens |
| Released | 3 Aug 2026 | 22 Sep 2026 (newer) |
| 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 models available today, for each kind of work, from our own benchmarks and licensed sources. The better rank is in green.
| Use case | Qwen3.8-Max | Claude Opus 5.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Product listingsTurning a sparse product feed and photos into listings that can go live | not measured | 6 of 20 |
| Decks from an analysisTurning a finished analysis into a deck you could present as it is | not measured | 5 of 19 |
| User surveysPlanning a user survey and reading its results without being misled | not measured | 2 of 8 |
| Marketing planningPlanning a year of ad spend without overspending | not measured | 5 of 19 |
| Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls | 18 of 165 | 2 of 164 |
| Professional workReal tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects | not measured | 3 of 51 |
| Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge | 23 of 199 | 1 of 198 |
| WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality | not measured | 4 of 188 |
| Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers | 66 of 153 | 2 of 152 |
| Speed under pressureGood decisions against a real clock (fast chess) | not measured | 23 of 23 |
Every shared result
Each model's best result on every measure both have, grouped by benchmark, with the setting that produced it. 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 | Qwen3.8-Max | Claude Opus 5.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results | ||
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better | 40.20803 | 57.6max reasoning |
| Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better | 43.0%0803 | 61.4%max reasoning |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0% of tasks, higher is better | 18.7%0803 | 59.6%max reasoning |
| SimpleQA Verified (Epoch AI) reported by SimpleQA Verified (Epoch AI) · 1 result | ||
| Correct answers% of questions, higher is better | 45.8%0803, xhigh reasoning | 72.2%max reasoning |
Show all 6 results (2 more)
| Measure | Qwen3.8-Max | Claude Opus 5.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 2 results | ||
| Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better | 78.3%0803 | 84.7%max reasoning |
| SciCode% of problems, higher is better | 53.2%0803 | 66.9%max reasoning |
Quick answers
Is Qwen3.8-Max better than Claude Opus 5.5?
Pick Claude Opus 5.5: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 57.6 against 40.2) at about the same price.
Run Qwen3.8-Max and Claude Opus 5.5 on your own prompt
Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.