Grok 4 Pro vs Qwen3-Max Reasoning: which model should you choose?
We compared Grok 4 Pro and Qwen3-Max Reasoning on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Qwen3-Max Reasoning has the stronger average benchmark score; Grok 4 Pro is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Grok 4 Pro
Grok 4 Pro is a frontier model from xAI. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $19.00 per million input tokens and $77.72 per million output tokens, and averages 85.4 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $19.00 / 1M
- Output
- $77.72 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 85.4
- 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 | Grok 4 Pro | Qwen3-Max Reasoning | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $19.00 | $18.12 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $77.72 | $81.94 | A |
| Context window | 1,000,000 | 2,000,000 | B |
| Max output | 128,000 | 8,192 | A |
| Average score | 85.4 | 85.9 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1487.5 | 1461.0 | A |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Grok 4 Pro wins 4, Qwen3-Max Reasoning wins 8, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Grok 4 Pro | Qwen3-Max Reasoning | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 84.9 | 88.1 | 3.2 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| GPQA Diamond | 79.2 | 79.8 | 0.6 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| SWE-bench Verified | 74.7 | 75.3 | 0.6 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| HumanEval | 89.7 | 92.6 | 2.9 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| MATH-500 | 92.3 | 93.0 | 0.7 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| AIME 2025 | 85.4 | 83.1 | 2.3 | Grok 4 Pro |
| LiveCodeBench | 77.8 | 78.0 | 0.2 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| IFEval | 91.3 | 92.2 | 0.9 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| TruthfulQA | 86.0 | 88.8 | 2.8 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| HellaSwag | 92.8 | 91.5 | 1.3 | Grok 4 Pro |
| MMMU | 84.9 | 82.3 | 2.6 | Grok 4 Pro |
| Arena Elo | 1487.5 | 1461.0 | 26.5 | Grok 4 Pro |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Grok 4 Pro costs about $33.68 per million tokens and Qwen3-Max Reasoning costs about $34.08. Grok 4 Pro is roughly 1% 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 1,000,000 for Grok 4 Pro. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Grok 4 Pro wins 4, Qwen3-Max Reasoning wins 8, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Qwen3-Max Reasoning leads Grok 4 Pro by 0.5 points (85.9 versus 85.4).
The price picture favours Grok 4 Pro. 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 Qwen3-Max Reasoning for quality-sensitive work and Grok 4 Pro for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose Grok 4 Pro if
- 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 want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- You need the larger 2,000,000-token context window.
FAQ
Is Grok 4 Pro better than Qwen3-Max Reasoning?
On the index average, Qwen3-Max Reasoning leads Grok 4 Pro by 0.5 points (85.9 versus 85.4). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Grok 4 Pro wins 4 benchmarks, Qwen3-Max Reasoning wins 8.
Which is cheaper, Grok 4 Pro or Qwen3-Max Reasoning?
Grok 4 Pro is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $33.68 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. Grok 4 Pro has 1,000,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Grok 4 Pro is proprietary; Qwen3-Max Reasoning is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Qwen3-Max Reasoning for quality-sensitive work and Grok 4 Pro for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.