Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Qwen3-Max
Benchmarks, API pricing and specs, head to head. Data updated 2026-06-10.
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Anthropic · Apr 2026
Anthropic's mid-tier workhorse: near-Opus capability at $3/$15, and the leader on the Finance Agent benchmark.
Qwen3-Max
80.5Alibaba (Qwen) · Sep 2025
Alibaba's trillion-parameter API flagship — frontier-adjacent quality with strong agentic tool use at mid-tier prices.
The verdict
Claude Sonnet 4.6 wins 1 of the 1 benchmarks these models share, against 0 for Qwen3-Max. Qwen3-Max is about 2.5x cheaper per blended million tokens (3:1 input:output mix). Claude Sonnet 4.6 also takes 1M of context versus 262K for Qwen3-Max.
Benchmark head-to-head 1–0
Specs & pricing
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen3-Max | |
|---|---|---|
| modhub Index | — | 80.5 |
| Input price / 1M | $3 | $1.2 |
| Output price / 1M | $15 | $6 |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Max output | 64K | 66K |
| Open weights | no | no |
| Reasoning model | yes | yes |
| Multimodal input | text, image | text |
| Knowledge cutoff | Jan 2026 | Jun 2025 |
| Released | Apr 2026 | Sep 2025 |
| Example monthly cost* | $52.50 | $21.00 |
* 10M input + 1.5M output tokens per month at list prices, no caching. Green = better value on that row.
Frequently asked questions
- Which is better, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Qwen3-Max?
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 wins 1 of the 1 benchmarks these models share, against 0 for Qwen3-Max. Qwen3-Max is about 2.5x cheaper per blended million tokens (3:1 input:output mix). Claude Sonnet 4.6 also takes 1M of context versus 262K for Qwen3-Max.
- Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Qwen3-Max?
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs $3/$15 per million input/output tokens, while Qwen3-Max costs $1.2/$6. For a typical workload of 10M input and 1.5M output tokens per month, that's $52.50 versus $21.00.
- Which model is better for coding, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Qwen3-Max?
- On SWE-bench Verified — the standard agentic-coding benchmark — Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores ~79.6% versus 69.6% for Qwen3-Max, making Claude Sonnet 4.6 the stronger pick for coding agents.