Qwen3-Max vs Gemini 3.5 Flash
Side-by-side comparison of API pricing, specs, benchmarks, and capabilities
| Specification |
by Alibaba
|
by Google
|
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Status | Current flagship | Current flagship |
| Released | Jan 1, 2026 | May 19, 2026 |
| Pricing per million tokens | ||
| Input | $1.20/Mtok | $1.50/Mtok |
| Output | $6.00/Mtok | $9.00/Mtok |
| Blended avg | $2.40/Mtok | $3.38/Mtok |
| Specifications | ||
| Context window | 262K tokens | 1M tokens |
| Parameters | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Speed (TPS) | — | — |
| Modalities | ||
| Input |
text
|
textimageaudiovideo
|
| Benchmarks sources: Alibaba model card / Vellum LLM Leaderboard | ||
| GPQA Diamond | 70 vendor | 72 vendor |
| SWE-Bench Verified | 48 vendor | 55 vendor |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 25 vendor | 40.2 |
| ARC-AGI 2 | 28 vendor | 72.1 |
| AIME 2025 | 72 vendor | 78 vendor |
| MMMLU | 80 vendor | 85 vendor |
| BFCL | 70 vendor | 75 vendor |
| HumanEval | 86 vendor | 88 vendor |
| MATH 500 | 78 vendor | 82 vendor |
| Avg benchmark score | — | 70.1 |
| Perf / dollar | — | 20.8 |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | — | 76.2 |
| MCP Atlas | — | 83.6 |
| OSWorld-Verified | — | 78.4 |
| Independent composite scores each on its own scale — not part of the average above | ||
| LMSYS Chatbot Arena | 1434.6 ELO | 1476.4 ELO |
| AA Intelligence Index | — | 52 |
| AA Agentic Index | — | 39.7 |
| AA-Omniscience Index (−100–100) | — | 21.2 |
| Providers | ||
| Available from |
Alibaba — $1.20/$6.00/Mtok
|
Google — $1.50/$9.00/Mtok
|
Cost at scale
1M tokens · 50/50 input/output| Volume | Qwen3-Max | Gemini 3.5 Flash | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1M tokens | $2.4 | $3.38 | $0.98 (29%) |
| 10M tokens | $24 | $33.75 | $9.75 (28.9%) |
| 100M tokens | $240 | $337.5 | $97.5 (28.9%) |
| 1000M tokens | $2400 | $3375 | $975 (28.9%) |
When to pick which
distilled from the pricing and spec data above- cost dominates: $2.40/Mtok blended vs $3.38 — 28.9% less on the same 50/50 token mix
- you need the longer context: 1M tokens vs 262K (3.8×)
The cheaper option here — Qwen3-Max costs $2.40/Mtok blended on Alibaba.
Summary
Qwen3-Max by Alibaba costs $1.20/Mtok input and $6.00/Mtok output, with a 262K-token context window. It supports text input.
Gemini 3.5 Flash by Google costs $1.50/Mtok input and $9.00/Mtok output, with a 1M-token context window. It supports text, image, audio, video input.
On a blended cost basis, Qwen3-Max is 28.9% cheaper than Gemini 3.5 Flash.
The two aren't directly comparable on average benchmark score: Gemini 3.5 Flash has published per-benchmark results, while Qwen3-Max does not yet — it is measured today on independent composites (see the table above).
Note: Pricing is per million tokens. Actual costs vary with usage patterns, prompt caching, and batch discounts. Always verify against official provider pricing pages.