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Model comparison

Claude Opus 5.5 vs Qwen 3.8 Max

Anthropic against Qwen, compared on context, price, and verified benchmark results.

Catalog record checked September 26, 2026Individual provider fields may changeEvidence confidence: High — see receipts below

Anthropic

Claude Opus 5.5

Frontier

vs

Qwen

Qwen 3.8 Max

Frontier · Open weights

AI model capability comparison
SpecificationClaude Opus 5.5Qwen 3.8 Max
ProviderAnthropicQwen
TierFrontierFrontier
Context window1M1M
Max output128KWinner: 131K
Input / 1M tokens$4Winner: $2
Output / 1M tokens$20Winner: $6
WeightsClosedOpen
ParametersNot disclosedUnverified2.4T total / 95B active (MoE)
Reasoning levelsadaptivelow, high, max
Modalitiestext, imagetext, image, video
API model idclaude-opus-5-5qwen3.8-max
ReleasedSeptember 22, 2026August 3, 2026
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index [max] (2026-09-26)57.6Not verifiedUnverified
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (2026-09-26)Not verifiedUnverified45.4
Humanity's Last Exam [max] (2026-09-26)61.4Not verifiedUnverified
Humanity's Last Exam (2026-08-14)Not verifiedUnverified56.2
Terminal-Bench 4.0 [max] (2026-09-26)59.6Not verifiedUnverified
Terminal-Bench 4.0 [xhigh] (2026-09-22)66.4Not verifiedUnverified
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (2026-08-03)Not verifiedUnverified86.6
GPQA Diamond (2026-08-03)Not verifiedUnverified92.6
SWE-bench Verified (2026-09-01)Not verifiedUnverified85.6

Prices are USD per million tokens at standard rates, excluding batch and caching discounts. Bold indicates the better figure where one is objectively better. Values we could not confirm from the provider are shown as “Not verified” rather than estimated.

Benchmark receipts

Where each score comes from, and how far it can be compared across models.

Pricing tiers

Claude Opus 5.5: $4/$20 per MTok, no long-context surcharge. Cache reads $0.20; 5-minute cache writes $5, 1-hour writes $8. Batch $2/$10; Fast mode $8/$40. Batches API allows 300K output with the output-300k-2026-03-24 beta header. Knowledge cutoff Jun 2026; retirement not before 2027-09-22.

Qwen 3.8 Max: $2/$6 per MTok (Alibaba Cloud Model Studio). 1M context (up to 991K input), 131,072 max output. A dated snapshot qwen3.8-max-0902 is also listed; open weights shipped separately as Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B.

FrontierRecord checked September 26, 2026

Claude Opus 5.5

Claude Opus 5.5 is Anthropic's default model for agentic coding and knowledge work — Anthropic says it performs near Fable 5.1 on most work at about 40% lower running cost than Opus 5, and it leads the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index v4.3.2.

Best for

  • Complex agentic coding
  • Enterprise knowledge work
  • Default frontier model

Watch out

Breaking changes from Opus 5: adaptive thinking cannot be disabled (effort runs low to max, default medium) and forced tool use returns an error. Verbose at max effort, so cap output on cost-sensitive routes.

FrontierOpen weightsRecord checked September 26, 2026

Qwen 3.8 Max

Qwen 3.8 Max is Alibaba's flagship — 2.4T MoE with 1M-class context, near frontier on the Intelligence Index.

Best for

  • Open-weight frontier work
  • Long-context
  • Multimodal

Watch out

Open weights dropped 2026-08-12 under a custom (non-Apache) licence with vision and 1M-context stripped from the open checkpoint — the open checkpoint is not the full API model. Verify the licence before commercial use.

When the cheaper one wins

Qwen 3.8 Max is cheaper on output at $6 per million tokens against $20 for Claude Opus 5.5 — about 3.3×. Use the cheaper tier for classification, extraction, summarisation, and any task where the expensive model’s extra score does not change the accepted output. The expensive one only pays if your hardest task actually fails on the cheap tier. These are standard-tier API rates, excluding batch and cache discounts.

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Evidence confidence: High

How strong and complete the evidence behind this comparison is — not a prediction of which model is better.

  • Pricing verified on both sides — Input and output rates are verified for both models.
  • 4/5 core specs verified on both sides — Not published for at least one side: parameter count.
  • 2 shared named benchmarks with differing scores — Measured on: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, Humanity's Last Exam.
  • Verified within the last 90 days — Newest catalog check was 2 days ago.
  • Both models carry source citations — Each side has at least two catalog sources on record.

Source receipts

Each catalog figure was checked against the provider or an independent second source on the date shown.

Related comparisons

Diving deeper on one model? Claude Opus 5.5 · Qwen 3.8 Max

Common questions

Claude Opus 5.5 vs Qwen 3.8 Max

Answered from the verified figures on this page rather than general guidance.

Is Claude Opus 5.5 or Qwen 3.8 Max cheaper for input?
Qwen 3.8 Max is cheaper at $2 per million input tokens, against $4 for Claude Opus 5.5 — roughly 2.0× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; Claude Opus 5.5 has tiered pricing: $4/$20 per MTok, no long-context surcharge. Cache reads $0.20; 5-minute cache writes $5, 1-hour writes $8. Batch $2/$10; Fast mode $8/$40. Batches API allows 300K output with the output-300k-2026-03-24 beta header. Knowledge cutoff Jun 2026; retirement not before 2027-09-22. Qwen 3.8 Max has tiered pricing: $2/$6 per MTok (Alibaba Cloud Model Studio). 1M context (up to 991K input), 131,072 max output. A dated snapshot qwen3.8-max-0902 is also listed; open weights shipped separately as Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B.
Is Claude Opus 5.5 or Qwen 3.8 Max cheaper for output?
Qwen 3.8 Max is cheaper at $6 per million output tokens, against $20 for Claude Opus 5.5 — roughly 3.3× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; Claude Opus 5.5 has tiered pricing: $4/$20 per MTok, no long-context surcharge. Cache reads $0.20; 5-minute cache writes $5, 1-hour writes $8. Batch $2/$10; Fast mode $8/$40. Batches API allows 300K output with the output-300k-2026-03-24 beta header. Knowledge cutoff Jun 2026; retirement not before 2027-09-22. Qwen 3.8 Max has tiered pricing: $2/$6 per MTok (Alibaba Cloud Model Studio). 1M context (up to 991K input), 131,072 max output. A dated snapshot qwen3.8-max-0902 is also listed; open weights shipped separately as Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B.
Which has the larger context window, Claude Opus 5.5 or Qwen 3.8 Max?
Both accept about 1M tokens of context, so document length will not decide between them.
Do Claude Opus 5.5 and Qwen 3.8 Max support the same reasoning levels?
Claude Opus 5.5 exposes adaptive, while Qwen 3.8 Max exposes low, high, max.
Should I use Claude Opus 5.5 or Qwen 3.8 Max?
Both sit in the frontier tier, so the choice usually comes down to price and context rather than capability. Claude Opus 5.5 suits complex agentic coding; Qwen 3.8 Max suits open-weight frontier work.
Can I self-host Claude Opus 5.5 or Qwen 3.8 Max?
Qwen 3.8 Max publishes open weights, but self-hosting and third-party provider access depend on the licence, hardware, serving support, and availability. Claude Opus 5.5 is a closed model whose supported access paths are controlled by its provider.

Next step

Choosing between them

The verified figures that separate this pair, computed from the catalog rather than restated boilerplate.

  • Input price: Qwen 3.8 Max costs $2 per 1M tokens versus $4 for Claude Opus 5.5 — a 2x difference at the headline tier.
  • Measured capability: Claude Opus 5.5 leads Humanity's Last Exam 61.4 to 56.2 (measured 2026-09-26).
  • Deployment: Qwen 3.8 Max publishes weights you can self-host; the other is API-only.
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