Model comparison
GPT-4o mini vs Qwen3.6 Max Preview
Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.5 to 25.5 on the Noometry Index. GPT-4o mini costs 11× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Max Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 23 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 23 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-4o mini scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.6 Max Preview in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads 54.1 to 10.4.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 6.9% for GPT-4o mini and 91.1% for Qwen3.6 Max Preview.
- GPT-4o mini is cheaper at $0.15 / $0.60 per million input/output tokens, against $1.30 / $7.80 for Qwen3.6 Max Preview.
- Qwen3.6 Max Preview accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 128K.
Side by side
| GPT-4o mini | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 25.5 | 51.5 |
| Released | 2024-07-18 | 2026-04-20 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 128K | 262K |
| Max output | 16K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.15 | $1.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.60 | $7.80 |
| Results tracked | 60 | 29 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
GPT-4o mini: 22.0 (#335), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 48.7 (#54)
| Benchmark | GPT-4o mini | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1290 | 1471 |
| SWE-bench Verified | — | 76.7% |
| Aider Polyglot | 3.6% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1482 |
| WeirdML | 11.8% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 46.1% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | 43.1% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 57.4% | — |
| HumanEval+ | 83.5% | — |
| MBPP+ | 72.2% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
GPT-4o mini: 27.5 (#101), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: —
| Benchmark | GPT-4o mini | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| BALROG | 17.4% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 4,254 |
Reasoning Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
GPT-4o mini: 8.7 (#347), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 41.7 (#53)
| Benchmark | GPT-4o mini | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| SimpleBench | 10.7% | 63% |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 20% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1267 | 1457 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 12% | 19% |
| DTBench | 54.4% | 87.2% |
| LMCA | 10.4% | 42.5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 126.56 | 149.24 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 28.8% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 74.1% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 32.8% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 50% | — |
| LiveBench | 41.3% | — |
| PIQA | 88.7% | — |
Math Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
GPT-4o mini: 10.4 (#314), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.1 (#46)
| Benchmark | GPT-4o mini | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 6.9% | 91.1% |
| LMArena Math | 1267 | 1465 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 0.7% | — |
| Omni-MATH | 28% | — |
| LiveBench Math | 36.3% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 52.6% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 23.1% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 4.2% |
| GSM8K | 91.3% | — |
Knowledge Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
GPT-4o mini: 17.7 (#284), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 57.6 (#39)
| Benchmark | GPT-4o mini | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 37.7% | 87.4% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 8.3% | 52% |
| LMArena Expert | 1235 | 1478 |
| MMLU-Pro | 60.3% | — |
| Confabulations | 37.2% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 36.8% | — |
| BoolQ | 88.7% | — |
| MMLU | 81.8% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
GPT-4o mini: 25.9 (#122), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: —
| Benchmark | GPT-4o mini | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1066 | — |
| Video-MME | 64.8% | — |
| GeoBench | 64% | — |
| VPCT | 34% | — |
Multilingual Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
GPT-4o mini: 42.0 (#199), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.2 (#48)
| Benchmark | GPT-4o mini | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1266 | 1437 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1265 | 1487 |
| LMArena French | 1297 | 1449 |
| LMArena Russian | 1275 | 1445 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1276 | 1454 |
| LMArena German | 1272 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1216 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1195 | — |
Instruction Following Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
GPT-4o mini: 61.9 (#239), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 75.7 (#55)
| Benchmark | GPT-4o mini | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1258 | 1438 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 56.8% | — |
| IFEval | 78.2% | — |
Long Context Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
GPT-4o mini: 39.1 (#186), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 44.6 (#61)
| Benchmark | GPT-4o mini | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1289 | 1457 |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
GPT-4o mini: 39.5 (#248), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 63.8 (#60)
| Benchmark | GPT-4o mini | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1286 | 1447 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1268 | 1435 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1285 | 1456 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 67.2% | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 873 | — |
| WildBench | 79.1% | — |
| LiveBench Language | 28.6% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is GPT-4o mini better than Qwen3.6 Max Preview?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.5 to 25.5 on the Noometry Index. GPT-4o mini costs 11× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Max Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, GPT-4o mini or Qwen3.6 Max Preview?
GPT-4o mini is cheaper. It lists at $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.60 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 Max Preview lists at $1.30 and $7.80.
Is GPT-4o mini or Qwen3.6 Max Preview better for coding?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 48.7 versus 22.0 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview does, with 262K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do GPT-4o mini and Qwen3.6 Max Preview share?
23 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-4o mini has 60 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Max Preview has 29.