# Qwen Max vs Qwen3-30B-A3B

> Qwen3-30B-A3B is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.9 to 34.7 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/qwen-max-vs-qwen3-30b-a3b
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 20

## Summary

- They share 20 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen Max scores higher in 2 categories and Qwen3-30B-A3B in 6 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3-30B-A3B leads 37.4 to 22.3.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 16.1% for Qwen Max and 70.3% for Qwen3-30B-A3B.
- Qwen3-30B-A3B is cheaper at $0.12 / $0.50 per million input/output tokens, against $1.60 / $6.40 for Qwen Max.
- Qwen3-30B-A3B accepts more context: 41K tokens versus 33K.
- Qwen3-30B-A3B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Qwen Max | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 34.7 | 38.9 |
| Rank | 230 | 179 |
| Context | 33K | 41K |
| Input $/M | $1.60 | $0.12 |
| Output $/M | $6.40 | $0.50 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Qwen Max: 30.7 (#292)
- Qwen3-30B-A3B: 37.5 (#194)

| Benchmark | Qwen Max | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1288 | 1416 |
| Aider Polyglot | 21.8% | — |
| SciCode | — | 33.3% |
| WeirdML | — | 29.8% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Qwen Max: —
- Qwen3-30B-A3B: 29.8 (#82)

| Benchmark | Qwen Max | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 41.4% |

## Reasoning

- Qwen Max: 25.1 (#151)
- Qwen3-30B-A3B: 22.2 (#204)

| Benchmark | Qwen Max | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1269 | 1398 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 54.9% |
| CritPt | — | 0.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 8% |
| DTBench | — | 69.3% |
| LMCA | — | 22.4% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 139.63 |

## Math

- Qwen Max: 22.3 (#276)
- Qwen3-30B-A3B: 37.4 (#157)

| Benchmark | Qwen Max | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 16.1% | 70.3% |
| LMArena Math | 1275 | 1394 |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 47.8% |
| MATH Level 5 | 67.2% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 1% | — |

## Knowledge

- Qwen Max: 30.3 (#228)
- Qwen3-30B-A3B: 41.8 (#105)

| Benchmark | Qwen Max | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 56.1% | 70.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1248 | 1396 |
| Confabulations | — | 12.3% |

## Multilingual

- Qwen Max: 41.8 (#202)
- Qwen3-30B-A3B: 49.5 (#132)

| Benchmark | Qwen Max | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1263 | 1372 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1254 | 1433 |
| LMArena French | 1330 | 1418 |
| LMArena German | 1254 | 1380 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1205 | 1337 |
| LMArena Korean | 1142 | 1331 |
| LMArena Russian | 1274 | 1370 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1290 | 1404 |

## Instruction Following

- Qwen Max: 66.5 (#208)
- Qwen3-30B-A3B: 72.0 (#142)

| Benchmark | Qwen Max | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1262 | 1363 |

## Long Context

- Qwen Max: 39.4 (#180)
- Qwen3-30B-A3B: 31.0 (#283)

| Benchmark | Qwen Max | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | 66.7% | 40.6% |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1288 | 1379 |

## Writing & Preference

- Qwen Max: 47.8 (#205)
- Qwen3-30B-A3B: 55.6 (#143)

| Benchmark | Qwen Max | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1282 | 1384 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1248 | 1317 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1277 | 1378 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | — | 75.3% |

## FAQ

### Is Qwen Max better than Qwen3-30B-A3B?

Qwen3-30B-A3B is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.9 to 34.7 on the Noometry Index.

### Which is cheaper, Qwen Max or Qwen3-30B-A3B?

Qwen3-30B-A3B is cheaper. It lists at $0.12 per million input tokens and $0.50 per million output tokens; Qwen Max lists at $1.60 and $6.40.

### Is Qwen Max or Qwen3-30B-A3B better for coding?

Qwen3-30B-A3B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 37.5 versus 30.7 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3-30B-A3B does, with 41K tokens against 33K.

### How many benchmarks do Qwen Max and Qwen3-30B-A3B share?

20 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen Max has 23 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3-30B-A3B has 32.