# Magistral Small vs Qwen Max

> Qwen Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 34.4 to 29.9 on the Noometry Index. Magistral Small costs 3.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/magistral-small-vs-qwen-max
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 2

## Summary

- They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. Magistral Small scores higher in 3 categories and Qwen Max in 1 category; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Qwen Max leads 24.1 to 6.9.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 30% for Magistral Small and 16.1% for Qwen Max.
- Magistral Small is cheaper at $0.50 / $1.50 per million input/output tokens, against $1.60 / $6.40 for Qwen Max.
- Magistral Small accepts more context: 128K tokens versus 33K.
- Magistral Small has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Magistral Small | Qwen Max |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 29.9 | 34.4 |
| Rank | 289 | 226 |
| Context | 128K | 33K |
| Input $/M | $0.50 | $1.60 |
| Output $/M | $1.50 | $6.40 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Magistral Small: 37.8 (#172)
- Qwen Max: 30.3 (#288)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Qwen Max |
|---|---|---|
| Aider Polyglot | — | 21.8% |
| SciCode | 35.2% | — |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1288 |

## Reasoning

- Magistral Small: 6.9 (#345)
- Qwen Max: 24.1 (#154)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Qwen Max |
|---|---|---|
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 6.3% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 5% | — |
| CritPt | 0.3% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 3% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1270 |
| DTBench | 61.3% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 133.19 | — |

## Math

- Magistral Small: 24.9 (#253)
- Qwen Max: 21.0 (#272)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Qwen Max |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 30% | 16.1% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1275 |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 67.2% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 1% |

## Knowledge

- Magistral Small: 30.9 (#215)
- Qwen Max: 30.3 (#222)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Qwen Max |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 56.1% | 56.1% |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1248 |

## Multilingual

- Magistral Small: —
- Qwen Max: 42.0 (#197)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Qwen Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1263 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1254 |
| LMArena French | — | 1329 |
| LMArena German | — | 1254 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1205 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1141 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1274 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1290 |

## Instruction Following

- Magistral Small: —
- Qwen Max: 66.7 (#203)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Qwen Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1262 |

## Long Context

- Magistral Small: —
- Qwen Max: 39.4 (#175)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Qwen Max |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 66.7% |
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1289 |

## Writing & Preference

- Magistral Small: —
- Qwen Max: 48.0 (#200)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Qwen Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1282 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1248 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1277 |

## FAQ

### Is Magistral Small better than Qwen Max?

Qwen Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 34.4 to 29.9 on the Noometry Index. Magistral Small costs 3.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Magistral Small or Qwen Max?

Magistral Small is cheaper. It lists at $0.50 per million input tokens and $1.50 per million output tokens; Qwen Max lists at $1.60 and $6.40.

### Is Magistral Small or Qwen Max better for coding?

Magistral Small scores higher on coding benchmarks: 37.8 versus 30.3 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Magistral Small does, with 128K tokens against 33K.

### How many benchmarks do Magistral Small and Qwen Max share?

2 benchmarks have published results for both models. Magistral Small has 10 scored results on Noometry and Qwen Max has 23.