# 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.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/qwen-plus-vs-qwen3-max
- Last updated: 2026-10-11
- Shared benchmarks: 19

## 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.

## Snapshot

| | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 37.1 | 43.7 |
| Rank | 210 | 87 |
| Context | 1M | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.40 | $1.20 |
| Output $/M | $1.20 | $6 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |

## Coding

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

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1328 | 1456 |
| ALE-Bench | — | 370.45 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Qwen Plus: —
- Qwen3 Max: —

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 71.56 |

## Reasoning

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

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 63.3% | 72.5% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1317 | 1448 |
| DTBench | 81.1% | 82.1% |
| LMCA | 24% | 28.3% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 30.1% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 4% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 142.38 |

## Math

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

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 17.8% | 73.3% |
| LMArena Math | 1326 | 1446 |
| MATH Level 5 | 65.3% | 97.1% |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 18.9% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 1.7% | — |

## Knowledge

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

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 48.1% | 72.6% |
| LMArena Expert | 1328 | 1455 |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 48.7% |

## Multilingual

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

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1310 | 1429 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1347 | 1478 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1251 | 1397 |
| LMArena Russian | 1323 | 1428 |
| LMArena French | — | 1449 |
| LMArena German | — | 1463 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1399 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1462 |

## Instruction Following

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

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1303 | 1419 |

## Long Context

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

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1324 | 1438 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 66.7% |
| CL-bench | — | 14.5% |

## Writing & Preference

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

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1326 | 1439 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1293 | 1402 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1336 | 1446 |

## FAQ

### 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.