Compare / Qwen3-Max vs Claude Opus 4.6

Qwen3-Max vs Claude Opus 4.6

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 18 results on 5 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3-Max Released 24 Sep 2025 · $0.78 in · $3.90 out
AnthropicClaude Opus 4.6 Released 5 Feb 2026 · $5.00 in · $25.00 out
Qwen3-Max wins 1Claude Opus 4.6 wins 17

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 Anthropic, every model from both labs.

Qwen3-Max or Claude Opus 4.6? The short answer

Pick Claude Opus 4.6 if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 31.9 against 15.6). Pick Qwen3-Max if cost matters more: it costs 6.4 times less per token.

  • Qwen3-Max is cheaper: $1.56 against $10.00 per million tokens, 6.4 times less.
  • Claude Opus 4.6 scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 31.9 against 15.6.
  • Claude Opus 4.6 is newer: released 5 Feb 2026, against 24 Sep 2025 for Qwen3-Max.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Qwen3-Max does better for sticking to the facts; Claude Opus 4.6 for agents and tool use, reasoning and knowledge and writing.

Head to head

15.6
Intelligence Index
31.9
$1.56
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$10.00
262,144
Context window, tokens
1,000,000

Every fact side by side

Qwen3-MaxClaude Opus 4.6
Price per million tokens$0.78 in · $3.90 out$5.00 in · $25.00 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$1.56$10.00
Cheapest host, blended–$10.00 (Amazon Bedrock)
Intelligence Index15.631.9
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second––
Context window262,144 tokens1,000,000 tokens
Released24 Sep 20255 Feb 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 154 of 164 17 of 164
Professional workReal tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects not measured 27 of 51
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 121 of 198 46 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 99 of 188 3 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 50 of 152 59 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-MaxClaude Opus 4.6
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 108 · 2 of 387 measured 1,423 1,505high reasoning
Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 110 · 6 of 380 measured 1,419 1,501high reasoning
Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 105 · 4 of 385 measured 1,393 1,501high reasoning
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 123 · 47 of 243 measured 15.6 31.9max reasoning
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 132 · 47 of 231 measured 76.4% 89.6%max reasoning
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 140 · 40 of 242 measured 11.9% 39.9%max reasoning
SimpleQA Verified (Epoch AI) reported by SimpleQA Verified (Epoch AI) · 1 result
Correct answers% of questions, higher is better 27 · 31 of 76 measured 48.7% 47.0%max reasoning
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 115 · 7 of 230 measured 38.6 70.9high reasoning
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 134 · 8 of 230 measured 23.0% 3.0%max reasoning
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 155 · 3 of 230 measured 0.33 0.42high reasoning
Vending-Bench 2 reported by Vending-Bench 2 · 1 result
Money after a yearUS dollars, higher is better 52 · 9 of 58 measured $71.57 $8,018
Show all 18 results (7 more)
MeasureQwen3-MaxClaude Opus 4.6
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 137 · 3 of 338 measured 1,417 1,547high reasoning
Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 106 · 3 of 387 measured 1,413 1,514high reasoning
Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 101 · 4 of 386 measured 1,405 1,500high reasoning
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 4 results
IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 118 · 96 of 195 measured 44.2% 53.1%max reasoning
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 154 · 59 of 233 measured 50.0% 78.0%max reasoning
Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 91 · 14 of 190 measured 20.5% 48.5%no reasoning
τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 79 · 36 of 193 measured 74.3% 92.1%max reasoning

Quick answers

Is Qwen3-Max better than Claude Opus 4.6?

Pick Claude Opus 4.6 if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 31.9 against 15.6). Pick Qwen3-Max if cost matters more: it costs 6.4 times less per token.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3-Max or Claude Opus 4.6?

Qwen3-Max is cheaper: $1.56 against $10.00 per million tokens, 6.4 times less.

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3-Max or Claude Opus 4.6?

Claude Opus 4.6 ranks 17 of 164 models on sale for multi-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls, against 154 for Qwen3-Max.

Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3-Max or Claude Opus 4.6?

Claude Opus 4.6 ranks 46 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 121 for Qwen3-Max.

Which is better for writing, Qwen3-Max or Claude Opus 4.6?

Claude Opus 4.6 ranks 3 of 188 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 99 for Qwen3-Max.

Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3-Max or Claude Opus 4.6?

Qwen3-Max ranks 50 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 59 for Claude Opus 4.6.

Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3-Max or Claude Opus 4.6?

Claude Opus 4.6: 1,000,000 tokens, against 262,144 for Qwen3-Max.

Run Qwen3-Max and Claude Opus 4.6 on your own prompt

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