# Qwen Plus vs Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct

> Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.1 to 37.1 on the Noometry Index. Qwen Plus costs 5.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/qwen-plus-vs-qwen3-coder-480b-a35b-instruct
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 14

## Summary

- They share 14 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen Plus scores higher in 2 categories and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct in 6 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads 37.6 to 23.3.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Kagi LLM Benchmark: 63.3% for Qwen Plus and 49.5% for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct.
- Qwen Plus is cheaper at $0.40 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $7.50 for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct.
- Qwen Plus accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Qwen Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 37.1 | 38.1 |
| Rank | 210 | 190 |
| Context | 1M | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.40 | $1.50 |
| Output $/M | $1.20 | $7.50 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Qwen Plus: 38.9 (#167)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 35.5 (#223)

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1328 | 1412 |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | — | 55.4% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1275 |
| GSO | — | 4.9% |
| WeirdML | — | 41.2% |
| ALE-Bench | — | 461.45 |
| AlgoTune | — | 1.44 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Qwen Plus: —
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 23.9 (#123)

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 27.2% |

## Reasoning

- Qwen Plus: 28.4 (#107)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 25.5 (#149)

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 63.3% | 49.5% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1317 | 1372 |
| DTBench | 81.1% | — |
| LMCA | 24% | — |

## Math

- Qwen Plus: 23.3 (#271)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 37.6 (#150)

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1326 | 1365 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 17.8% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 65.3% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 1.7% | — |

## Knowledge

- Qwen Plus: 27.4 (#251)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 37.0 (#162)

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1328 | 1338 |
| GPQA Diamond | 48.1% | — |

## Multilingual

- Qwen Plus: 45.1 (#175)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 47.7 (#148)

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1310 | 1346 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1347 | 1357 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1251 | 1310 |
| LMArena Russian | 1323 | 1366 |
| LMArena French | — | 1398 |
| LMArena German | — | 1325 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1305 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1360 |

## Instruction Following

- Qwen Plus: 68.8 (#181)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 71.6 (#147)

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1303 | 1355 |

## Long Context

- Qwen Plus: 40.3 (#158)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 42.0 (#131)

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1324 | 1378 |

## Writing & Preference

- Qwen Plus: 52.2 (#176)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 55.3 (#147)

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1326 | 1357 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1293 | 1333 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1336 | 1365 |

## FAQ

### Is Qwen Plus better than Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.1 to 37.1 on the Noometry Index. Qwen Plus costs 5.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Qwen Plus or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?

Qwen Plus is cheaper. It lists at $0.40 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct lists at $1.50 and $7.50.

### Is Qwen Plus or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct better for coding?

Qwen Plus scores higher on coding benchmarks: 38.9 versus 35.5 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-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct share?

14 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen Plus has 20 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has 25.