Alternatives to Qwen3 Max

Qwen LMArena 1412.4 $1.56/M on a balanced workload prices as of 2026-10-06

25 models are higher-scoring or cheaper, with neither dimension worse.

Of the 144 models carrying both an independent score and a published price at the same delivery mode, 40 score at least as high as Qwen3 Max and cost no more under at least one listed workload, with at least one of those dimensions improved. 25 match or beat its recorded context, maximum output, input modes, tool use and extended reasoning. 15 have a recorded capability loss, named on every row.

Dominance is not a property of a model. It is a property of a model, a capability lens and a workload, and all three are named on every row. Scores are LMArena Elo, used under CC BY 4.0 from the official dataset; prices are blended per million tokens. A higher score is not a drop-in replacement.

This page is built only while a candidate improves score or price without worsening the other under a listed workload. When that comparison no longer holds, it is not generated.

Where it holds

Workload	Qwen3 Max $/M	Recorded capabilities preserved	Recorded capability losses
Balanced	$1.56	25	15
Summarise	$0.758	25	15
Chat	$1.84	25	15
Code gen	$2.60	25	15
Agentic	$0.877	25	15

Workload mixes are defined on the methodology page. Cached input is priced at the cached rate, and reasoning tokens at the worse of the reasoning and output rates.

What you would be replacing

Intelligence	1412.4
Context window	262K
Max output	65K
Input modes	text
Tool use	yes
Extended reasoning	yes

Preserving recorded capabilities requires matching or beating these fields. Full record for Qwen3 Max, or check Qwen3 Max against the whole catalogue.

Recorded capabilities preserved 25

Each option has a higher score or a lower price, with neither dimension worse under the listed workloads. It matches or beats Qwen3 Max on recorded context, maximum output, input modes, tool use and extended reasoning.

#	Model	Intelligence	$/M	Holds under
1	MiMo-V2.6-Pro Xiaomi	1491 +78.6	$0.540	Balanced −65% Summarise −56% Chat −74% Code gen −75% Agentic −72%
2	Gemini 3.6 Flash Google	1479.5 +67.1	$1.50	Balanced −4% Summarise −7% Chat −5% Code gen −4% Agentic −9%
3	GLM 5.3 Flash Z.ai	1469.6 +57.2	$0.238	Balanced −85% Summarise −82% Chat −86% Code gen −87% Agentic −85%
4	GLM 5.3 Z.ai	1471.4 +59	$1.00	Balanced −36% Summarise −54% Chat −20% Code gen −19% Agentic −26%
5	GLM 5.2 Z.ai	1470.4 +58	$1.12	Balanced −28% Summarise −44% Chat −16% Code gen −14% Agentic −21%
6	MiMo-V2.5-Pro Xiaomi	1465 +52.6	$0.544	Balanced −65% Summarise −56% Chat −74% Code gen −75% Agentic −72%
7	DeepSeek V4.1 Flash DeepSeek	1462.5 +50.1	$0.182	Balanced −88% Summarise −91% Chat −87% Code gen −86% Agentic −88%
8	MiMo-V2.6-Flash Xiaomi	1456.4 +44	$0.175	Balanced −89% Summarise −86% Chat −92% Code gen −92% Agentic −91%
9	Qwen3.7 Plus Qwen	1454.6 +42.2	$0.560	Balanced −64% Summarise −61% Chat −66% Code gen −66% Agentic −64%
10	Kimi K2.6 Moonshot AI	1455.5 +43.1	$0.961	Balanced −38% Summarise −39% Chat −38% Code gen −37% Agentic −38%
11	Hy3 Tencent	1440.7 +28.3	$0.231	Balanced −85% Summarise −84% Chat −86% Code gen −86% Agentic −85%
12	Kimi K2.5 Moonshot AI	1445.2 +32.8	$1.20	Balanced −23% Summarise −24% Chat −23% Code gen −23% Agentic −24%
13	DeepSeek V4 Pro 0423 DeepSeek	1445.2 +32.8	$1.21	Balanced −23% Summarise −34% Chat −15% Code gen −14% Agentic −21%
14	Qwen3.8 27B Qwen	1440.7 +28.3	$0.562	Balanced −64% Summarise −76% Chat −54% Code gen −53% Agentic −58%
15	Gemma 4 26B A4B Google	1433.9 +21.5	$0.127	Balanced −92% Summarise −91% Chat −92% Code gen −92% Agentic −91%
16	Qwen3.5 397B A17B Qwen	1438 +25.6	$0.878	Balanced −44% Summarise −36% Chat −36% Code gen −40% Agentic −22%
17	Qwen3.6 Plus Qwen	1436.7 +24.3	$0.731	Balanced −53% Summarise −46% Chat −47% Code gen −50% Agentic −35%
18	DeepSeek V4 Flash 0423 DeepSeek	1432.1 +19.7	$0.113	Balanced −93% Summarise −90% Chat −94% Code gen −95% Agentic −93%
19	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite Google	1434.7 +22.3	$0.850	Balanced −46% Summarise −56% Chat −40% Code gen −39% Agentic −46%
20	MiniMax M3 MiniMax	1432.1 +19.7	$0.485	Balanced −69% Summarise −66% Chat −71% Code gen −71% Agentic −69%
21	GPT-5.6 Luna OpenAI	1431 +18.6	$0.450	Balanced −71% Summarise −74% Chat −70% Code gen −70% Agentic −72%
22	MiMo-V2.5 Xiaomi	1427.5 +15.1	$0.175	Balanced −89% Summarise −86% Chat −92% Code gen −92% Agentic −91%
23	Qwen3.5-122B-A10B Qwen	1417.1 tie	$0.715	Balanced −54% Summarise −54% Chat −46% Code gen −48% Agentic −39%
24	Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview Google	1415.7 tie	$0.563	Balanced −64% Summarise −67% Chat −63% Code gen −62% Agentic −65%
25	Inkling Small Thinking Machines	1413.7 tie	$0.638	Balanced −59% Summarise −49% Chat −65% Code gen −66% Agentic −60%

Alternatives with recorded capability losses 15

These improve score or price without worsening the other under the listed workloads, but reduce at least one recorded capability. Read the last column before switching.

Model	Intelligence	$/M	Holds under	Recorded capability loss
Gemma 4 31B Google	1443.4 +31	$0.205	Balanced −87% Summarise −80% Chat −87% Code gen −89% Agentic −80%	66K → 16K max output
GLM 5 Z.ai	1446.3 +33.9	$1.09	Balanced −30% Summarise −19% Chat −38% Code gen −39% Agentic −32%	262K → 205K context
GLM 4.6 Z.ai	1439.9 +27.5	$0.760	Balanced −51% Summarise −48% Chat −54% Code gen −54% Agentic −52%	262K → 205K context 66K → 16K max output
GLM 4.7 Z.ai	1435.5 +23.1	$0.738	Balanced −53% Summarise −50% Chat −54% Code gen −54% Agentic −53%	262K → 205K context
GLM 4.5 Z.ai	1430.3 +17.9	$1.00	Balanced −36% Summarise −29% Chat −41% Code gen −42% Agentic −37%	262K → 131K context
DeepSeek V3.2 DeepSeek	1424.5 +12.1	$0.290	Balanced −81% Summarise −70% Chat −85% Code gen −88% Agentic −77%	262K → 164K context
R1 0528 DeepSeek	1427.9 +15.5	$0.920	Balanced −41% Summarise −23% Chat −36% Code gen −42% Agentic −14%	262K → 164K context 66K → 33K max output
DeepSeek V3.2 Exp DeepSeek	1422.4 tie	$0.305	Balanced −80% Summarise −63% Chat −82% Code gen −86% Agentic −67%	262K → 164K context
Qwen3 235B A22B Instruct 2507 Qwen	1419.3 tie	$0.205	Balanced −87% Summarise −85% Chat −85% Code gen −86% Agentic −82%	66K → 16K max output no extended reasoning
Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct Qwen	1420.1 tie	$0.370	Balanced −76% Summarise −73% Chat −76% Code gen −77% Agentic −72%	66K → 33K max output no extended reasoning
DeepSeek V3.1 DeepSeek	1419.7 tie	$0.453	Balanced −71% Summarise −60% Chat −69% Code gen −73% Agentic −57%	262K → 164K context 66K → 33K max output
Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct Qwen	1417.3 tie	$0.268	Balanced −83% Summarise −83% Chat −80% Code gen −81% Agentic −77%	no extended reasoning
DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus DeepSeek	1417.1 tie	$0.453	Balanced −71% Summarise −60% Chat −69% Code gen −73% Agentic −57%	262K → 164K context
Gemini 2.5 Flash Google	1417 tie	$0.850	Balanced −46% Summarise −56% Chat −40% Code gen −39% Agentic −46%	66K → 66K max output
Qwen3 235B A22B Thinking 2507 Qwen	1415.2 tie	$0.748	Balanced −52% Summarise −56% Chat −43% Code gen −43% Agentic −38%	262K → 131K context

What this compares, and what it leaves out

Quality is LMArena Elo, used under CC BY 4.0 from the official dataset. The 95% confidence interval on a difference between two scores is about ±10.47 points, so a gap smaller than that is marked tie rather than an improvement — see significance bands.
204 further models at this delivery mode carry a price but no independent score. They are absent from the comparison in both directions — unrated is not a zero, and an unmeasured model is neither an alternative nor a worse buy.
Retired models are never offered as an alternative, and a model only competes against its own delivery mode: batch trades latency for price, so it is not a like-for-like swap.
Nothing here measures latency, throughput, rate limits or how a model behaves on your prompts. Two models with the same index score are not interchangeable.
Models with no higher-scoring or cheaper alternative that is no worse on the other axis are on the value frontier. Models with such an alternative are listed here.

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