o3 Max vs Qwen3-Max Reasoning: which model should you choose?
We compared o3 Max and Qwen3-Max Reasoning on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Qwen3-Max Reasoning has the stronger average benchmark score; Qwen3-Max Reasoning is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
o3 Max
o3 Max is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 2,000,000-token context window, costs $17.82 per million input tokens and $90.55 per million output tokens, and averages 84.8 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $17.82 / 1M
- Output
- $90.55 / 1M
- Context
- 2,000,000
- Avg score
- 84.8
- 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 | o3 Max | Qwen3-Max Reasoning | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $17.82 | $18.12 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $90.55 | $81.94 | B |
| Context window | 2,000,000 | 2,000,000 | Tie |
| Max output | 128,000 | 8,192 | A |
| Average score | 84.8 | 85.9 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1465.2 | 1461.0 | A |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
o3 Max 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 | o3 Max | Qwen3-Max Reasoning | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 84.9 | 88.1 | 3.2 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| GPQA Diamond | 82.7 | 79.8 | 2.9 | o3 Max |
| SWE-bench Verified | 71.8 | 75.3 | 3.5 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| HumanEval | 89.8 | 92.6 | 2.8 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| MATH-500 | 87.0 | 93.0 | 6.0 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| AIME 2025 | 86.2 | 83.1 | 3.1 | o3 Max |
| LiveCodeBench | 76.4 | 78.0 | 1.6 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| IFEval | 92.5 | 92.2 | 0.3 | o3 Max |
| TruthfulQA | 87.3 | 88.8 | 1.5 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| HellaSwag | 93.4 | 91.5 | 1.9 | o3 Max |
| MMMU | 80.8 | 82.3 | 1.5 | Qwen3-Max Reasoning |
| Arena Elo | 1465.2 | 1461.0 | 4.2 | o3 Max |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, o3 Max costs about $36.00 per million tokens and Qwen3-Max Reasoning costs about $34.08. Qwen3-Max Reasoning is roughly 5% cheaper than o3 Max. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Both models list a 2,000,000-token context window. That is enough for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, o3 Max wins 5, Qwen3-Max Reasoning wins 7, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Qwen3-Max Reasoning leads o3 Max by 1.1 points (85.9 versus 84.8).
The price picture favours Qwen3-Max Reasoning. 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 Qwen3-Max Reasoning for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.
Choose o3 Max if
- You need the larger 128,000-token output limit.
Choose Qwen3-Max Reasoning if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
FAQ
Is o3 Max better than Qwen3-Max Reasoning?
On the index average, Qwen3-Max Reasoning leads o3 Max by 1.1 points (85.9 versus 84.8). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. o3 Max wins 5 benchmarks, Qwen3-Max Reasoning wins 7.
Which is cheaper, o3 Max or Qwen3-Max Reasoning?
Qwen3-Max Reasoning is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $34.08 per million tokens, versus $36.00 for o3 Max.
Which has the larger context window?
Both models list a 2,000,000-token context window.
Are these models open weights?
o3 Max 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 check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.