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Model comparison

Claude Opus 5.5 vs Qwen3-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

Qwen3-Max

Frontier

AI model capability comparison
SpecificationClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3-Max
ProviderAnthropicQwen
TierFrontierFrontier
Context windowWinner: 1M262K
Max output128KNot verifiedUnverified
Input / 1M tokens$4Winner: $1.20
Output / 1M tokens$20Winner: $6
WeightsClosedClosed
ParametersNot disclosedUnverified>1T (proprietary)
Reasoning levelsadaptivelow, high, max
Modalitiestext, imagetext
API model idclaude-opus-5-5qwen3-max
ReleasedSeptember 22, 2026September 23, 2025
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index [max] (2026-09-26)57.6Not verifiedUnverified
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (2026-09-26)Not verifiedUnverified15.6
Humanity's Last Exam [max] (2026-09-26)61.4Not verifiedUnverified
Terminal-Bench 4.0 [max] (2026-09-26)59.6Not verifiedUnverified
Terminal-Bench 4.0 [xhigh] (2026-09-22)66.4Not verifiedUnverified

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.

Qwen3-Max: Model Studio International $1.20/$6.00 per MTok up to 32K input; $2.40/$12 for 32K–128K; $3/$15 for 128K–256K. The qwen3-max alias now equals qwen3-max-2026-01-23. Proprietary, API-only.

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.

FrontierRecord checked September 26, 2026

Qwen3-Max

Qwen3-Max is Alibaba's proprietary 1-trillion-parameter API model with multimodal input.

Best for

  • Agentic coding
  • Multimodal knowledge work
  • Long-context via API

Watch out

Max line is proprietary/API-only (no published weights). Per-provider prices differ.

When the cheaper one wins

Qwen3-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.
  • 3/5 core specs verified on both sides — Not published for at least one side: max output, parameter count.
  • 1 shared named benchmark with differing scores — Measured on: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index.
  • 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 · Qwen3-Max

Common questions

Claude Opus 5.5 vs Qwen3-Max

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

Is Claude Opus 5.5 or Qwen3-Max cheaper for input?
Qwen3-Max is cheaper at $1.20 per million input tokens, against $4 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. Qwen3-Max has tiered pricing: Model Studio International $1.20/$6.00 per MTok up to 32K input; $2.40/$12 for 32K–128K; $3/$15 for 128K–256K. The qwen3-max alias now equals qwen3-max-2026-01-23. Proprietary, API-only.
Is Claude Opus 5.5 or Qwen3-Max cheaper for output?
Qwen3-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. Qwen3-Max has tiered pricing: Model Studio International $1.20/$6.00 per MTok up to 32K input; $2.40/$12 for 32K–128K; $3/$15 for 128K–256K. The qwen3-max alias now equals qwen3-max-2026-01-23. Proprietary, API-only.
Which has the larger context window, Claude Opus 5.5 or Qwen3-Max?
Claude Opus 5.5 accepts 1M tokens against 262K for Qwen3-Max. This only matters if you routinely send very long documents or large codebases.
Do Claude Opus 5.5 and Qwen3-Max support the same reasoning levels?
Claude Opus 5.5 exposes adaptive, while Qwen3-Max exposes low, high, max.
Should I use Claude Opus 5.5 or Qwen3-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; Qwen3-Max suits agentic coding.

Next step

Choosing between them

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

  • Input price: Qwen3-Max costs $1.20 per 1M tokens versus $4 for Claude Opus 5.5 — a 3.3x difference at the headline tier.
  • Context: Claude Opus 5.5 takes 1M against 262K for Qwen3-Max — only decisive if your prompts approach the smaller window.
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