Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Qwen3-Max Reasoning: which model should you choose?
We compared Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Qwen3-Max Reasoning on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Claude Sonnet 4.5 has the stronger average benchmark score; Claude Sonnet 4.5 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5 is a frontier model from Anthropic. It offers a 400,000-token context window, costs $17.84 per million input tokens and $70.50 per million output tokens, and averages 86.0 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $17.84 / 1M
- Output
- $70.50 / 1M
- Context
- 400,000
- Avg score
- 86.0
- Open weights
- No
Qwen3-Max Reasoning
Qwen3-Max Reasoning is a frontier model from Alibaba Cloud. It offers a 2,000,000-token context window, costs $18.12 per million input tokens and $81.94 per million output tokens, and averages 85.9 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $18.12 / 1M
- Output
- $81.94 / 1M
- Context
- 2,000,000
- Avg score
- 85.9
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $17.84 | $18.12 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $70.50 | $81.94 | A |
| Context window | 400,000 | 2,000,000 | B |
| Max output | 128,000 | 8,192 | A |
| Average score | 86.0 | 85.9 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1478.2 | 1461.0 | A |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Claude Sonnet 4.5 wins 6, Qwen3-Max Reasoning wins 6, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 88.0 | 88.1 | 0.1 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| GPQA Diamond | 82.6 | 79.8 | 2.8 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 74.2 | 75.3 | 1.1 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| HumanEval | 92.7 | 92.6 | 0.1 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| MATH-500 | 87.0 | 93.0 | 6.0 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| AIME 2025 | 86.3 | 83.1 | 3.2 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LiveCodeBench | 82.5 | 78.0 | 4.5 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| IFEval | 91.1 | 92.2 | 1.1 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| TruthfulQA | 87.2 | 88.8 | 1.6 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| HellaSwag | 93.0 | 91.5 | 1.5 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| MMMU | 80.9 | 82.3 | 1.4 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| Arena Elo | 1478.2 | 1461.0 | 17.2 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Claude Sonnet 4.5 costs about $31.00 per million tokens and Qwen3-Max Reasoning costs about $34.08. Claude Sonnet 4.5 is roughly 9% cheaper than Qwen3-Max Reasoning. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Qwen3-Max Reasoning has the larger context window at 2,000,000 tokens, compared with 400,000 for Claude Sonnet 4.5. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Claude Sonnet 4.5 wins 6, Qwen3-Max Reasoning wins 6, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads Qwen3-Max Reasoning by 0.1 points (86.0 versus 85.9).
The price picture favours Claude Sonnet 4.5. The context picture favours Qwen3-Max Reasoning. 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 Claude Sonnet 4.5 for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.
Choose Claude Sonnet 4.5 if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 128,000-token output limit.
Choose Qwen3-Max Reasoning if
- You need the larger 2,000,000-token context window.
FAQ
Is Claude Sonnet 4.5 better than Qwen3-Max Reasoning?
On the index average, Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads Qwen3-Max Reasoning by 0.1 points (86.0 versus 85.9). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Claude Sonnet 4.5 wins 6 benchmarks, Qwen3-Max Reasoning wins 6.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Qwen3-Max Reasoning?
Claude Sonnet 4.5 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $31.00 per million tokens, versus $34.08 for Qwen3-Max Reasoning.
Which has the larger context window?
Qwen3-Max Reasoning has the larger context window at 2,000,000 tokens. Claude Sonnet 4.5 has 400,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Claude Sonnet 4.5 is proprietary; Qwen3-Max Reasoning is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Claude Sonnet 4.5 for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.