Grok 4 vs Qwen3-Max Reasoning: which model should you choose?
We compared Grok 4 and Qwen3-Max Reasoning on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Grok 4 has the stronger average benchmark score; Qwen3-Max Reasoning is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Grok 4
Grok 4 is a frontier model from xAI. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $17.90 per million input tokens and $84.75 per million output tokens, and averages 86.5 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $17.90 / 1M
- Output
- $84.75 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 86.5
- 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 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $17.90 | $18.12 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $84.75 | $81.94 | B |
| Context window | 200,000 | 2,000,000 | B |
| Max output | 32,768 | 8,192 | A |
| Average score | 86.5 | 85.9 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1457.8 | 1461.0 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Grok 4 wins 5, Qwen3-Max Reasoning wins 7, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Grok 4 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 87.8 | 88.1 | 0.3 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| GPQA Diamond | 82.6 | 79.8 | 2.8 | Grok 4 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 77.9 | 75.3 | 2.6 | Grok 4 |
| HumanEval | 92.0 | 92.6 | 0.6 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| MATH-500 | 90.8 | 93.0 | 2.2 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| AIME 2025 | 82.2 | 83.1 | 0.9 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| LiveCodeBench | 82.2 | 78.0 | 4.2 | Grok 4 |
| IFEval | 91.6 | 92.2 | 0.6 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| TruthfulQA | 87.6 | 88.8 | 1.2 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| HellaSwag | 93.9 | 91.5 | 2.4 | Grok 4 |
| MMMU | 82.9 | 82.3 | 0.6 | Grok 4 |
| Arena Elo | 1457.8 | 1461.0 | 3.2 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Grok 4 costs about $34.61 per million tokens and Qwen3-Max Reasoning costs about $34.08. Qwen3-Max Reasoning is roughly 2% cheaper than Grok 4. 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 200,000 for Grok 4. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Grok 4 wins 5, Qwen3-Max Reasoning wins 7, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Grok 4 leads Qwen3-Max Reasoning by 0.6 points (86.5 versus 85.9).
The price picture favours Qwen3-Max Reasoning. 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 Grok 4 for quality-sensitive work and Qwen3-Max Reasoning for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose Grok 4 if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- You need the larger 32,768-token output limit.
Choose Qwen3-Max Reasoning if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 2,000,000-token context window.
FAQ
Is Grok 4 better than Qwen3-Max Reasoning?
On the index average, Grok 4 leads Qwen3-Max Reasoning by 0.6 points (86.5 versus 85.9). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Grok 4 wins 5 benchmarks, Qwen3-Max Reasoning wins 7.
Which is cheaper, Grok 4 or Qwen3-Max Reasoning?
Qwen3-Max Reasoning is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $34.08 per million tokens, versus $34.61 for Grok 4.
Which has the larger context window?
Qwen3-Max Reasoning has the larger context window at 2,000,000 tokens. Grok 4 has 200,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Grok 4 is proprietary; Qwen3-Max Reasoning is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Grok 4 for quality-sensitive work and Qwen3-Max Reasoning for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.