ERNIE 4.5 Pro vs Qwen3 Instruct: which model should you choose?
We compared ERNIE 4.5 Pro and Qwen3 Instruct on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. ERNIE 4.5 Pro has the stronger average benchmark score; Qwen3 Instruct is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
ERNIE 4.5 Pro
ERNIE 4.5 Pro is a multimodal model from Baidu. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $13.89 per million input tokens and $65.19 per million output tokens, and averages 80.5 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $13.89 / 1M
- Output
- $65.19 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 80.5
- Open weights
- No
Qwen3 Instruct
Qwen3 Instruct is a multimodal model from Alibaba Cloud. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $5.06 per million input tokens and $25.39 per million output tokens, and averages 79.8 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $5.06 / 1M
- Output
- $25.39 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 79.8
- Open weights
- Yes
Specification comparison
| Spec | ERNIE 4.5 Pro | Qwen3 Instruct | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $13.89 | $5.06 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $65.19 | $25.39 | B |
| Context window | 1,000,000 | 1,000,000 | Tie |
| Max output | 32,768 | 128,000 | B |
| Average score | 80.5 | 79.8 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1414.3 | 1419.2 | B |
| Open weights | No | Yes | B |
Benchmark comparison
ERNIE 4.5 Pro wins 6, Qwen3 Instruct wins 5, and 1 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | ERNIE 4.5 Pro | Qwen3 Instruct | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 80.3 | 80.3 | 0.0 | Tie |
| GPQA Diamond | 74.7 | 74.1 | 0.6 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| SWE-bench Verified | 66.5 | 68.5 | 2.0 | Qwen3 Instruct |
| HumanEval | 86.9 | 85.1 | 1.8 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| MATH-500 | 87.2 | 86.1 | 1.1 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| AIME 2025 | 76.3 | 78.5 | 2.2 | Qwen3 Instruct |
| LiveCodeBench | 76.4 | 71.1 | 5.3 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| IFEval | 86.0 | 89.1 | 3.1 | Qwen3 Instruct |
| TruthfulQA | 83.1 | 79.7 | 3.4 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| HellaSwag | 90.2 | 87.0 | 3.2 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| MMMU | 78.4 | 78.7 | 0.3 | Qwen3 Instruct |
| Arena Elo | 1414.3 | 1419.2 | 4.9 | Qwen3 Instruct |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, ERNIE 4.5 Pro costs about $26.71 per million tokens and Qwen3 Instruct costs about $10.14. Qwen3 Instruct is roughly 62% cheaper than ERNIE 4.5 Pro. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Both models list a 1,000,000-token context window. That is enough for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, ERNIE 4.5 Pro wins 6, Qwen3 Instruct wins 5, and 1 are tied. On the index average, ERNIE 4.5 Pro leads Qwen3 Instruct by 0.7 points (80.5 versus 79.8).
The price picture favours Qwen3 Instruct. The context picture is effectively a tie. 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 ERNIE 4.5 Pro for quality-sensitive work and Qwen3 Instruct for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose ERNIE 4.5 Pro if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
Choose Qwen3 Instruct if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 128,000-token output limit.
- You need open weights for self-hosting or fine-tuning.
FAQ
Is ERNIE 4.5 Pro better than Qwen3 Instruct?
On the index average, ERNIE 4.5 Pro leads Qwen3 Instruct by 0.7 points (80.5 versus 79.8). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. ERNIE 4.5 Pro wins 6 benchmarks, Qwen3 Instruct wins 5.
Which is cheaper, ERNIE 4.5 Pro or Qwen3 Instruct?
Qwen3 Instruct is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $10.14 per million tokens, versus $26.71 for ERNIE 4.5 Pro.
Which has the larger context window?
Both models list a 1,000,000-token context window.
Are these models open weights?
ERNIE 4.5 Pro is proprietary; Qwen3 Instruct is open weights.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with ERNIE 4.5 Pro for quality-sensitive work and Qwen3 Instruct for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.