OpenAI o4-mini vs Qwen3-Max
Benchmarks, API pricing and specs, head to head. Data updated 2026-06-10.
OpenAI o4-mini
80.9OpenAI · Apr 2025
A compact reasoning model that punched far above its price on math — 92.7% on AIME 2025 at $1.10 per million input tokens.
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
Qwen3-Max wins 2 of the 3 benchmarks these models share, against 1 for OpenAI o4-mini. OpenAI o4-mini is about 1.2x cheaper per blended million tokens (3:1 input:output mix). Qwen3-Max also takes 262K of context versus 200K for OpenAI o4-mini.
Benchmark head-to-head 1–2
Specs & pricing
| OpenAI o4-mini | Qwen3-Max | |
|---|---|---|
| modhub Index | 80.9 | 80.5 |
| Input price / 1M | $1.1 | $1.2 |
| Output price / 1M | $4.4 | $6 |
| Context window | 200K | 262K |
| Max output | 100K | 66K |
| Open weights | no | no |
| Reasoning model | yes | yes |
| Multimodal input | text, image | text |
| Knowledge cutoff | May 2024 | Jun 2025 |
| Released | Apr 2025 | Sep 2025 |
| Example monthly cost* | $17.60 | $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, OpenAI o4-mini or Qwen3-Max?
- Qwen3-Max wins 2 of the 3 benchmarks these models share, against 1 for OpenAI o4-mini. OpenAI o4-mini is about 1.2x cheaper per blended million tokens (3:1 input:output mix). Qwen3-Max also takes 262K of context versus 200K for OpenAI o4-mini.
- Which is cheaper, OpenAI o4-mini or Qwen3-Max?
- OpenAI o4-mini costs $1.1/$4.4 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 $17.60 versus $21.00.
- Which model is better for coding, OpenAI o4-mini or Qwen3-Max?
- On SWE-bench Verified — the standard agentic-coding benchmark — Qwen3-Max scores 69.6% versus 68.1% for OpenAI o4-mini, making Qwen3-Max the stronger pick for coding agents.