--- title: "Qwen: Qwen3 Max — price, capability and what beats it · Undominated.ai" canonical: https://undominated.ai/models/qwen__qwen3-max/ description: "Qwen: Qwen3 Max: $0.780/M in, $3.90/M out. Independent capability scores, context-tier pricing, and alternatives compared under recorded workload and capability requirements." --- # Qwen: Qwen3 Max — price, capability and what beats it · Undominated.ai > Qwen: Qwen3 Max: $0.780/M in, $3.90/M out. Independent capability scores, context-tier pricing, and alternatives compared under recorded workload and capability requirements. [Check base rates for this workload](/check/qwen__qwen3-max/) [Cheaper alternatives](/alternatives/qwen__qwen3-max/) [Family](/families/qwen/) [Compare models](https://undominated.ai/compare/?models=qwen%2Fqwen3-max) Comparison context Choose up to three standard models in Compare. Requirements and prompt length apply in Compare. This page keeps its stated price basis and workload controls. MODEL PROOF # Qwen3 Max Qwen · 23 Sept 2025 Balanced Summarise Chat Code gen Agentic BETTER VALUE OPTION ## A stored alternative has an equal-or-higher measured score and an equal-or-lower price. **$1.56** / 1M tokens Balanced · 3 tokens in per 1 out Base context tier shown; inspect the complete context ladder below. [MiMo-V2.6-Pro](/models/xiaomi__mimo-v2.6-pro/) · Δ score 78.6 points · 65% lower measured price · $0.540 / 1M tokens [Gemma 4 31B](/models/google__gemma-4-31b-it/) is a further stored option with these losses: 66K → 16K max output Lifecycle: retirement date · 09 Oct 2026 Evidence as of 06 Oct 2026 [openrouter/models](https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/models) [LMArena · cc-by-4.0](https://huggingface.co/datasets/lmarena-ai/leaderboard-dataset) Independent LMArena score 1,412.4 ± 6.47 · 8,969 votes Context window 262.14K Maximum output 65.54K Input modalities text Output modalities text Published input price $0.780 / 1M tokens Published output price $3.90 / 1M tokens Pricing kind fixed Context tiers Tiered by context Inspect [complete billing conditions](#billing-details) and endpoint terms below. Price from Alibaba: the cheapest offer that is serving, at standard delivery and at the maker’s precision or better, at its standard rate. Every price dimension · USD per million tokens | Input | $0.780 /M | | --- | --- | | Output | $3.90 /M | | Cached input | $0.156 /M | | Cache write | $0.975 /M | | Cache write 1h | Unknown /M | | Reasoning | Unknown /M | **The headline rate does not apply to a long-context workload.** Complete context ladder · 2 tiers | More than 32,000 tokens | $1.56 /M in (2×) $7.80 /M out $0.312 /M cached input $1.95 /M cache write | | --- | --- | | More than 128,000 tokens | $1.95 /M in (2.5×) $9.75 /M out $0.390 /M cached input $2.44 /M cache write | ### Who sells it The same weights, different shops. Cheapest is not like-for-like when serving precision differs. 1 provider offers · rates, limits and conditions Rates are USD per million tokens. Endpoint terms can differ even when the quoted price and precision match. A listed parameter is a provider declaration, not a task-success test. | Seller | Input | Output | Precision | Uptime (1d) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Seller Alibaba alibaba Endpoint terms Cached input /M $0.156 Context limit 262,144 tokens Output limit 65,536 tokens Tools Listed by endpoint Reasoning Not listed by endpoint Promotional discount None reported Uptime · last 30 minutes 99.79% | Input $0.780 | Output $3.90 | Precision undeclared | Uptime (1d) 99.79% | ### Independent scores | LMArena Elo | 1412.4 default | | --- | --- | LMArena Elo under CC BY 4.0. Absence of another board is not a score of zero. #### Best rankings by task - ASCII art #51 1139 - SVG #82 1010 - Game development #87 1107 - 3D #89 1082 - Code categories #90 1115 - Data visualisation #90 1107 - Websites #92 1125 - UI components #94 1085 Per-task Elo and rank from [Design Arena](https://designarena.ai), via OpenRouter’s model feed. The rank is the feed’s, and it counts models OpenRouter does not list. ### Capability | Context window | 262K | | --- | --- | | Max output | 65K | | Input modes | text | | Tool use | yes | | Reasoning | optional | | Knowledge cutoff | 2025-06-30 | | Open weights | Unknown | **Retirement scheduled for 2026-10-09.** Do not start new work on it. ### Provenance | Price source | [openrouter.ai](https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/models) | | --- | --- | | Fetched | 2026-10-06 | | Quality data | verified | Qwen3-Max is an updated release built on the Qwen3 series, offering major improvements in reasoning, instruction following, multilingual support, and long-tail knowledge coverage compared to the January 2025 version. It... ## Questions this page answers What does Qwen3 Max cost? $0.780/M in, $3.90/M out in this catalogue, as of the fetch date on this page. That is the API row, not a subscription. Does Qwen3 Max have an independent quality score? Qwen3 Max has an LMArena score in this catalogue. What beats Qwen3 Max? MiMo-V2.6-Pro has an equal-or-higher measured score and an equal-or-lower price. Does this page use Artificial Analysis scores for Qwen3 Max? No. Artificial Analysis figures are not published here. Quality on this page is LMArena Elo where a score exists; otherwise the row is unrated. MODEL MONUMENT ## Save or share this proof Download proof card · 1200 × 630 Preview and more sharing options Qwen: Qwen3 Max. Balanced workload. Better value option available. Evidence as of 06 Oct 2026. Copy model link Download square card · 1080 × 1080 Copy landscape image Share landscape card ## Related - Both better and cheaper [MiMo-V2.6-Pro](/models/xiaomi__mimo-v2.6-pro/) - Higher score and cheaper, with a named trade [Gemma 4 31B](/models/google__gemma-4-31b-it/) - Nearby on the capability axis [Inkling Small](/models/thinkingmachines__inkling-small/) - Same vendor [Qwen3 235B A22B Thinking 2507](/models/qwen__qwen3-235b-a22b-thinking-2507/) - Qwen models [Qwen](/providers/qwen/) - Where this model appears [deprecations](/deprecations/) - Nearby on the capability axis [GPT-5.2](/models/openai__gpt-5.2/) - Same vendor [Qwen3.5-27B](/models/qwen__qwen3.5-27b/) - Where this model appears [cliffs](/cliffs/) - Nearby on the capability axis [GPT-5.4 Mini](/models/openai__gpt-5.4-mini/) - Same vendor [Qwen3.5-122B-A10B](/models/qwen__qwen3.5-122b-a10b/) - Where this model appears [significance](/significance/) ## Badge The verdict as one SVG, for a README or a docs page. It states this model's dominance status at the balanced workload on the LMArena lens, with the date it was computed, and it is rebuilt with the catalogue — so it changes when the verdict changes, including to one you would rather it did not. Markdown Copy [![Qwen3 Max — Undominated.ai dominance verdict](https://undominated.ai/badge/qwen__qwen3-max.svg)](https://undominated.ai/models/qwen__qwen3-max/) HTML Copy Qwen3 Max — Undominated.ai dominance verdict Direct file: [https://undominated.ai/badge/qwen__qwen3-max.svg](https://undominated.ai/badge/qwen__qwen3-max.svg) — a static SVG, written by scripts/build-badges.mjs on every build, so the copy you embed is never older than the last deploy. ## Continue your investigation - [Explore model families](/families/) - [Compare a shortlist](/compare/) - [Check a model](/check/) - [Understand the evidence](/methodology/)