Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision vs Qwen3-Max: which model should you choose?
We compared Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision and Qwen3-Max on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Qwen3-Max has the stronger average benchmark score; Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision is a frontier model from Anthropic. It offers a 128,000-token context window, costs $16.99 per million input tokens and $82.33 per million output tokens, and averages 83.8 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $16.99 / 1M
- Output
- $82.33 / 1M
- Context
- 128,000
- Avg score
- 83.8
- Open weights
- No
Qwen3-Max
Qwen3-Max is a frontier model from Alibaba Cloud. It offers a 400,000-token context window, costs $17.37 per million input tokens and $94.30 per million output tokens, and averages 84.4 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $17.37 / 1M
- Output
- $94.30 / 1M
- Context
- 400,000
- Avg score
- 84.4
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision | Qwen3-Max | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $16.99 | $17.37 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $82.33 | $94.30 | A |
| Context window | 128,000 | 400,000 | B |
| Max output | 16,384 | 4,096 | A |
| Average score | 83.8 | 84.4 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1447.6 | 1449.2 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision wins 6, Qwen3-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 Vision | Qwen3-Max | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 84.8 | 84.0 | 0.8 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision |
| GPQA Diamond | 79.6 | 82.3 | 2.7 | Qwen3-Max |
| SWE-bench Verified | 73.7 | 73.3 | 0.4 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision |
| HumanEval | 87.0 | 88.5 | 1.5 | Qwen3-Max |
| MATH-500 | 90.6 | 89.7 | 0.9 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision |
| AIME 2025 | 86.4 | 81.1 | 5.3 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision |
| LiveCodeBench | 76.5 | 82.2 | 5.7 | Qwen3-Max |
| IFEval | 89.9 | 92.5 | 2.6 | Qwen3-Max |
| TruthfulQA | 83.7 | 83.4 | 0.3 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision |
| HellaSwag | 89.4 | 92.9 | 3.5 | Qwen3-Max |
| MMMU | 79.7 | 78.7 | 1.0 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision |
| Arena Elo | 1447.6 | 1449.2 | 1.6 | Qwen3-Max |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision costs about $33.33 per million tokens and Qwen3-Max costs about $36.60. Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision is roughly 9% cheaper than Qwen3-Max. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Qwen3-Max has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens, compared with 128,000 for Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision wins 6, Qwen3-Max wins 6, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Qwen3-Max leads Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision by 0.6 points (84.4 versus 83.8).
The price picture favours Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision. The context picture favours Qwen3-Max. 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 for quality-sensitive work and Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 16,384-token output limit.
Choose Qwen3-Max if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- You need the larger 400,000-token context window.
FAQ
Is Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision better than Qwen3-Max?
On the index average, Qwen3-Max leads Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision by 0.6 points (84.4 versus 83.8). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision wins 6 benchmarks, Qwen3-Max wins 6.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision or Qwen3-Max?
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $33.33 per million tokens, versus $36.60 for Qwen3-Max.
Which has the larger context window?
Qwen3-Max has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens. Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision has 128,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision is proprietary; Qwen3-Max is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Qwen3-Max for quality-sensitive work and Claude Sonnet 4.5 Vision for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.