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Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 5 vs Qwen3-235B-A22B

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 Sonnet 5

Balanced

vs

Qwen

Qwen3-235B-A22B

Balanced · Open weights

AI model capability comparison
SpecificationClaude Sonnet 5Qwen3-235B-A22B
ProviderAnthropicQwen
TierBalancedBalanced
Context windowWinner: 1M128K
Max outputWinner: 128K33K
Input / 1M tokens$2Winner: $0.70
Output / 1M tokens$10Winner: $2.80
WeightsClosedOpen
ParametersNot disclosedUnverified235B total / 22B active (MoE)
Reasoning levelsadaptivelow, high, max
Modalitiestext, imagetext
LicenseNot disclosedUnverifiedApache 2.0
API model idclaude-sonnet-5qwen3-235b-a22b
ReleasedJune 30, 2026April 29, 2025
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index [max] (2026-09-26)38.2Not verifiedUnverified
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (2026-09-26)Not verifiedUnverified9.5
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (2026-06-30)80.4Not verifiedUnverified
Humanity's Last Exam (2026-06-30)57.4Not verifiedUnverified
SWE-bench Verified (2026-09-01)79.6Not verifiedUnverified
LiveBench (2026-09-05)76Not 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 Sonnet 5: Standard $2/$10 per MTok; cache reads 10% of base input. Knowledge cutoff Jan 2026.

Qwen3-235B-A22B: Model Studio International $0.70 input / $2.80 output per MTok (non-thinking); thinking-mode output $8.40. Open weights (Apache 2.0) for self-hosting; 32,768-token recommended output.

BalancedRecord checked September 26, 2026

Claude Sonnet 5

Claude Sonnet 5 is Anthropic's best speed/intelligence balance for high-volume agentic work at $2/$10.

Best for

  • Everyday generation
  • High-volume agents
  • Cost-sensitive work

Watch out

A step below Opus 5.5 on the hardest tasks; pick Opus 5.5 when quality is paramount. Sonnet 5.5 is announced but not yet released.

BalancedOpen weightsRecord checked September 26, 2026

Qwen3-235B-A22B

Qwen3-235B-A22B is Alibaba's widely deployed open-weight MoE — 235B/22B, strong price-performance.

Best for

  • Open-weight deployments
  • Self-hosting
  • Multilingual

Watch out

Needs multi-GPU for the 235B total; hosted rates vary.

When the cheaper one wins

Qwen3-235B-A22B is cheaper on output at $2.80 per million tokens against $10 for Claude Sonnet 5 — about 3.6×. 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.
  • 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 Sonnet 5 · Qwen3-235B-A22B

Common questions

Claude Sonnet 5 vs Qwen3-235B-A22B

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

Is Claude Sonnet 5 or Qwen3-235B-A22B cheaper for input?
Qwen3-235B-A22B is cheaper at $0.70 per million input tokens, against $2 for Claude Sonnet 5 — roughly 2.9× 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 Sonnet 5 has tiered pricing: Standard $2/$10 per MTok; cache reads 10% of base input. Knowledge cutoff Jan 2026. Qwen3-235B-A22B has tiered pricing: Model Studio International $0.70 input / $2.80 output per MTok (non-thinking); thinking-mode output $8.40. Open weights (Apache 2.0) for self-hosting; 32,768-token recommended output.
Is Claude Sonnet 5 or Qwen3-235B-A22B cheaper for output?
Qwen3-235B-A22B is cheaper at $2.80 per million output tokens, against $10 for Claude Sonnet 5 — roughly 3.6× 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 Sonnet 5 has tiered pricing: Standard $2/$10 per MTok; cache reads 10% of base input. Knowledge cutoff Jan 2026. Qwen3-235B-A22B has tiered pricing: Model Studio International $0.70 input / $2.80 output per MTok (non-thinking); thinking-mode output $8.40. Open weights (Apache 2.0) for self-hosting; 32,768-token recommended output.
Which has the larger context window, Claude Sonnet 5 or Qwen3-235B-A22B?
Claude Sonnet 5 accepts 1M tokens against 128K for Qwen3-235B-A22B. This only matters if you routinely send very long documents or large codebases.
Do Claude Sonnet 5 and Qwen3-235B-A22B support the same reasoning levels?
Claude Sonnet 5 exposes adaptive, while Qwen3-235B-A22B exposes low, high, max.
Should I use Claude Sonnet 5 or Qwen3-235B-A22B?
Both sit in the balanced tier, so the choice usually comes down to price and context rather than capability. Claude Sonnet 5 suits everyday generation; Qwen3-235B-A22B suits open-weight deployments.
Can I self-host Claude Sonnet 5 or Qwen3-235B-A22B?
Qwen3-235B-A22B publishes open weights, but self-hosting and third-party provider access depend on the licence, hardware, serving support, and availability. Claude Sonnet 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: Qwen3-235B-A22B costs $0.70 per 1M tokens versus $2 for Claude Sonnet 5 — a 2.9x difference at the headline tier.
  • Context: Claude Sonnet 5 takes 1M against 128K for Qwen3-235B-A22B — only decisive if your prompts approach the smaller window.
  • Deployment: Qwen3-235B-A22B publishes weights you can self-host; the other is API-only.
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