Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Qwen3-Max Turbo: which model should you choose?
We compared Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Qwen3-Max Turbo on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Claude Sonnet 4.5 has the stronger average benchmark score; Qwen3-Max Turbo 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 Turbo
Qwen3-Max Turbo is a frontier model from Alibaba Cloud. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $17.70 per million input tokens and $63.95 per million output tokens, and averages 84.7 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $17.70 / 1M
- Output
- $63.95 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 84.7
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Qwen3-Max Turbo | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $17.84 | $17.70 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $70.50 | $63.95 | B |
| Context window | 400,000 | 1,000,000 | B |
| Max output | 128,000 | 128,000 | Tie |
| Average score | 86.0 | 84.7 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1478.2 | 1456.9 | A |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Claude Sonnet 4.5 wins 9, Qwen3-Max Turbo wins 3, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Qwen3-Max Turbo | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 88.0 | 86.8 | 1.2 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| GPQA Diamond | 82.6 | 78.3 | 4.3 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 74.2 | 75.9 | 1.7 | Qwen3-Max Turbo |
| HumanEval | 92.7 | 92.5 | 0.2 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| MATH-500 | 87.0 | 91.9 | 4.9 | Qwen3-Max Turbo |
| AIME 2025 | 86.3 | 81.2 | 5.1 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LiveCodeBench | 82.5 | 76.8 | 5.7 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| IFEval | 91.1 | 92.1 | 1.0 | Qwen3-Max Turbo |
| TruthfulQA | 87.2 | 86.3 | 0.9 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| HellaSwag | 93.0 | 90.8 | 2.2 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| MMMU | 80.9 | 78.8 | 2.1 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Arena Elo | 1478.2 | 1456.9 | 21.3 | 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 Turbo costs about $29.26. Qwen3-Max Turbo is roughly 6% cheaper than Claude Sonnet 4.5. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Qwen3-Max Turbo has the larger context window at 1,000,000 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 9, Qwen3-Max Turbo wins 3, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads Qwen3-Max Turbo by 1.3 points (86.0 versus 84.7).
The price picture favours Qwen3-Max Turbo. The context picture favours Qwen3-Max 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 Claude Sonnet 4.5 for quality-sensitive work and Qwen3-Max Turbo 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 if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
Choose Qwen3-Max Turbo if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 1,000,000-token context window.
FAQ
Is Claude Sonnet 4.5 better than Qwen3-Max Turbo?
On the index average, Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads Qwen3-Max Turbo by 1.3 points (86.0 versus 84.7). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Claude Sonnet 4.5 wins 9 benchmarks, Qwen3-Max Turbo wins 3.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Qwen3-Max Turbo?
Qwen3-Max Turbo is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $29.26 per million tokens, versus $31.00 for Claude Sonnet 4.5.
Which has the larger context window?
Qwen3-Max Turbo has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens. Claude Sonnet 4.5 has 400,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Claude Sonnet 4.5 is proprietary; Qwen3-Max Turbo 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 Qwen3-Max Turbo for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.