Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo vs Qwen3-Max Max: which model should you choose?
We compared Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo and Qwen3-Max Max on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo and Qwen3-Max Max are effectively tied on the index average; Qwen3-Max Max is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo is a frontier model from Anthropic. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $18.37 per million input tokens and $81.65 per million output tokens, and averages 85.9 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $18.37 / 1M
- Output
- $81.65 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 85.9
- Open weights
- No
Qwen3-Max Max
Qwen3-Max Max is a frontier model from Alibaba Cloud. It offers a 400,000-token context window, costs $18.53 per million input tokens and $74.05 per million output tokens, and averages 85.9 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $18.53 / 1M
- Output
- $74.05 / 1M
- Context
- 400,000
- Avg score
- 85.9
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo | Qwen3-Max Max | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $18.37 | $18.53 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $81.65 | $74.05 | B |
| Context window | 1,000,000 | 400,000 | A |
| Max output | 65,536 | 65,536 | Tie |
| Average score | 85.9 | 85.9 | Tie |
| Arena Elo | 1461.7 | 1467.7 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo wins 6, Qwen3-Max Max wins 6, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo | Qwen3-Max Max | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 87.2 | 85.2 | 2.0 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo |
| GPQA Diamond | 83.7 | 83.8 | 0.1 | Qwen3-Max Max |
| SWE-bench Verified | 75.2 | 74.3 | 0.9 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo |
| HumanEval | 90.4 | 90.2 | 0.2 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo |
| MATH-500 | 88.0 | 92.8 | 4.8 | Qwen3-Max Max |
| AIME 2025 | 87.8 | 82.7 | 5.1 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo |
| LiveCodeBench | 78.9 | 82.8 | 3.9 | Qwen3-Max Max |
| IFEval | 91.4 | 93.7 | 2.3 | Qwen3-Max Max |
| TruthfulQA | 87.7 | 89.3 | 1.6 | Qwen3-Max Max |
| HellaSwag | 93.9 | 91.4 | 2.5 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo |
| MMMU | 81.1 | 78.9 | 2.2 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo |
| Arena Elo | 1461.7 | 1467.7 | 6.0 | Qwen3-Max Max |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo costs about $34.19 per million tokens and Qwen3-Max Max costs about $32.41. Qwen3-Max Max is roughly 5% cheaper than Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens, compared with 400,000 for Qwen3-Max Max. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo wins 6, Qwen3-Max Max wins 6, and 0 are tied. The two models are effectively tied on the index average at 85.9.
The price picture favours Qwen3-Max Max. The context picture favours Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo. Those two dimensions often matter more than a few benchmark points once a model is good enough for the task.
If you need a single default, start with Qwen3-Max Max if cost is the constraint and Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo if context is the constraint. Test both on a sample of your own traffic before committing.
Choose Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo if
- You need the larger 1,000,000-token context window.
Choose Qwen3-Max Max if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
FAQ
Is Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo better than Qwen3-Max Max?
The two models are effectively tied on the index average at 85.9. The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo wins 6 benchmarks, Qwen3-Max Max wins 6.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo or Qwen3-Max Max?
Qwen3-Max Max is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $32.41 per million tokens, versus $34.19 for Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo.
Which has the larger context window?
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens. Qwen3-Max Max has 400,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo is proprietary; Qwen3-Max Max is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Qwen3-Max Max if cost is the constraint and Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo if context is the constraint. Test both on a sample of your own traffic before committing.