--- title: "Qwen: Qwen3.6 Max Preview — price, capability and what beats it · Undominated.ai" canonical: https://undominated.ai/models/qwen__qwen3.6-max-preview/ description: "Qwen: Qwen3.6 Max Preview: $1.03/M in, $6.16/M out. Independent capability scores, context-tier pricing, and alternatives compared under recorded workload and capability requirements." --- # Qwen: Qwen3.6 Max Preview — price, capability and what beats it · Undominated.ai > Qwen: Qwen3.6 Max Preview: $1.03/M in, $6.16/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__qwen3.6-max-preview/) [Cheaper alternatives](/alternatives/qwen__qwen3.6-max-preview/) [Family](/families/qwen/) [Compare models](https://undominated.ai/compare/?models=qwen%2Fqwen3.6-max-preview) 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 # Qwen3.6 Max Preview Qwen · 27 Apr 2026 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. **$2.31** / 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 44.2 points · 77% lower measured price · $0.540 / 1M tokens [GLM 5.1](/models/z-ai__glm-5.1/) is a further stored option with these losses: 262K → 205K context 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 1,446.8 ± 8.18 · 5,406 votes Context window 262.14K Maximum output 65.54K Input modalities text Output modalities text Published input price $1.03 / 1M tokens Published output price $6.16 / 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 | $1.03 /M | | --- | --- | | Output | $6.16 /M | | Cached input | Unknown /M | | Cache write | $1.28 /M | | Cache write 1h | Unknown /M | | Reasoning | Unknown /M | **The headline rate does not apply to a long-context workload.** Complete context ladder · 1 tier | More than 128,000 tokens | $1.58 /M in (1.54×) $9.48 /M out Unknown /M cached input $1.98 /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 Unknown Context limit 262,144 tokens Output limit 65,536 tokens Tools Listed by endpoint Reasoning Listed by endpoint Promotional discount None reported Uptime · last 30 minutes Unknown | Input $1.03 | Output $6.16 | Precision undeclared | Uptime (1d) 100.00% | ### Independent scores | LMArena Elo | 1446.8 default | | --- | --- | LMArena Elo under CC BY 4.0. Absence of another board is not a score of zero. ### Capability | Context window | 262K | | --- | --- | | Max output | 65K | | Input modes | text | | Tool use | yes | | Reasoning | optional | | 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 | Qwen3.6-Max-Preview is a proprietary frontier model from Alibaba Cloud built on a sparse mixture-of-experts architecture with approximately 1 trillion total parameters. It is optimized for agentic coding, tool use, and... ## Questions this page answers What does Qwen3.6 Max Preview cost? $1.03/M in, $6.16/M out in this catalogue, as of the fetch date on this page. That is the API row, not a subscription. Does Qwen3.6 Max Preview have an independent quality score? Qwen3.6 Max Preview has an LMArena score in this catalogue. What beats Qwen3.6 Max Preview? 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 Qwen3.6 Max Preview? 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: Qwen3.6 Max Preview. 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 [GLM 5.1](/models/z-ai__glm-5.1/) - Nearby on the capability axis [Grok 4.5](/models/x-ai__grok-4.5/) - Same vendor [Qwen3.8 27B](/models/qwen__qwen3.8-27b/) - Qwen models [Qwen](/providers/qwen/) - Where this model appears [deprecations](/deprecations/) - Nearby on the capability axis [GPT-5.6 Terra](/models/openai__gpt-5.6-terra/) - Same vendor [Qwen3.7 Plus](/models/qwen__qwen3.7-plus/) - Where this model appears [cliffs](/cliffs/) - Nearby on the capability axis [GLM 5](/models/z-ai__glm-5/) - Same vendor [Qwen3.5 397B A17B](/models/qwen__qwen3.5-397b-a17b/) - 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 [![Qwen3.6 Max Preview — Undominated.ai dominance verdict](https://undominated.ai/badge/qwen__qwen3.6-max-preview.svg)](https://undominated.ai/models/qwen__qwen3.6-max-preview/) HTML Copy Qwen3.6 Max Preview — Undominated.ai dominance verdict Direct file: [https://undominated.ai/badge/qwen__qwen3.6-max-preview.svg](https://undominated.ai/badge/qwen__qwen3.6-max-preview.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/)