Noometry

Model comparison

Qwen Plus vs Qwen3 Max

Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.7 to 37.1 on the Noometry Index. Qwen Plus costs 4.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 19 shared benchmarks.

Qwen Plus Alibaba (Qwen)

37.1

Rank #210 Confirmed

Qwen3 Max Alibaba (Qwen)

43.7

Rank #87 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 19 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen Plus scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3 Max in 7 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3 Max leads 48.1 to 27.4.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 17.8% for Qwen Plus and 73.3% for Qwen3 Max.
  • Qwen Plus is cheaper at $0.40 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $1.20 / $6 for Qwen3 Max.
  • Qwen Plus accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.

Side by side

Qwen PlusQwen3 Max
ProviderAlibaba (Qwen)Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index37.143.7
Released2024-01-252025-09-23
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
Context window1M262K
Max output33K66K
Input $ / M tokens$0.40$1.20
Output $ / M tokens$1.20$6
Results tracked2033

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3 Max leads

Qwen Plus: 38.9 (#167), Qwen3 Max: 43.0 (#93)

BenchmarkQwen PlusQwen3 Max
LMArena Coding13281456
ALE-Bench—370.45

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Qwen Plus: —, Qwen3 Max: —

BenchmarkQwen PlusQwen3 Max
Vending-Bench 2—71.56

Reasoning Qwen Plus leads

Qwen Plus: 28.4 (#107), Qwen3 Max: 22.6 (#190)

BenchmarkQwen PlusQwen3 Max
Kagi LLM Benchmark63.3%72.5%
LMArena Hard Prompts13171448
DTBench81.1%82.1%
LMCA24%28.3%
NYT Connections (extended)—30.1%
Chess Puzzles—4%
Mystery Game Puzzles—5%
Epoch Capabilities Index—142.38

Math Qwen3 Max leads

Qwen Plus: 23.3 (#271), Qwen3 Max: 38.7 (#131)

BenchmarkQwen PlusQwen3 Max
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202517.8%73.3%
LMArena Math13261446
MATH Level 565.3%97.1%
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)—18.9%
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)1.7%—

Knowledge Qwen3 Max leads

Qwen Plus: 27.4 (#251), Qwen3 Max: 48.1 (#78)

BenchmarkQwen PlusQwen3 Max
GPQA Diamond48.1%72.6%
LMArena Expert13281455
SimpleQA Verified—48.7%

Multilingual Qwen3 Max leads

Qwen Plus: 45.1 (#175), Qwen3 Max: 53.7 (#62)

BenchmarkQwen PlusQwen3 Max
LMArena Non-English13101429
LMArena Chinese13471478
LMArena Japanese12511397
LMArena Russian13231428
LMArena French—1449
LMArena German—1463
LMArena Korean—1399
LMArena Spanish—1462

Instruction Following Qwen3 Max leads

Qwen Plus: 68.8 (#181), Qwen3 Max: 74.8 (#87)

BenchmarkQwen PlusQwen3 Max
LMArena Instruction Following13031419

Long Context Qwen3 Max leads

Qwen Plus: 40.3 (#158), Qwen3 Max: 41.6 (#134)

BenchmarkQwen PlusQwen3 Max
LMArena Longer Query13241438
Fiction.LiveBench—66.7%
CL-bench—14.5%

Writing & Preference Qwen3 Max leads

Qwen Plus: 52.2 (#176), Qwen3 Max: 62.4 (#76)

BenchmarkQwen PlusQwen3 Max
LMArena Text13261439
LMArena Creative Writing12931402
LMArena Multi-Turn13361446

Frequently asked questions

Is Qwen Plus better than Qwen3 Max?

Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.7 to 37.1 on the Noometry Index. Qwen Plus costs 4.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Qwen Plus or Qwen3 Max?

Qwen Plus is cheaper. It lists at $0.40 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Max lists at $1.20 and $6.

Is Qwen Plus or Qwen3 Max better for coding?

Qwen3 Max scores higher on coding benchmarks: 43.0 versus 38.9 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen Plus does, with 1M tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks do Qwen Plus and Qwen3 Max share?

19 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen Plus has 20 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 Max has 33.

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