o3 Reasoning vs Qwen3-Max Max: which model should you choose?
We compared o3 Reasoning and Qwen3-Max Max on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Qwen3-Max Max has the stronger average benchmark score; o3 Reasoning is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
o3 Reasoning
o3 Reasoning is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $18.07 per million input tokens and $70.65 per million output tokens, and averages 85.3 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $18.07 / 1M
- Output
- $70.65 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 85.3
- Open weights
- No
Qwen3-Max Max
Qwen3-Max Max is a frontier model from Alibaba Cloud. It offers a 400,000-token context window, costs $18.53 per million input tokens and $74.05 per million output tokens, and averages 85.9 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $18.53 / 1M
- Output
- $74.05 / 1M
- Context
- 400,000
- Avg score
- 85.9
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | o3 Reasoning | Qwen3-Max Max | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $18.07 | $18.53 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $70.65 | $74.05 | A |
| Context window | 200,000 | 400,000 | B |
| Max output | 16,384 | 65,536 | B |
| Average score | 85.3 | 85.9 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1456.9 | 1467.7 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
o3 Reasoning wins 3, Qwen3-Max Max wins 9, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | o3 Reasoning | Qwen3-Max Max | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 87.7 | 85.2 | 2.5 | o3 Reasoning |
| GPQA Diamond | 79.6 | 83.8 | 4.2 | Qwen3-Max Max |
| SWE-bench Verified | 74.1 | 74.3 | 0.2 | Qwen3-Max Max |
| HumanEval | 91.3 | 90.2 | 1.1 | o3 Reasoning |
| MATH-500 | 92.0 | 92.8 | 0.8 | Qwen3-Max Max |
| AIME 2025 | 80.5 | 82.7 | 2.2 | Qwen3-Max Max |
| LiveCodeBench | 82.7 | 82.8 | 0.1 | Qwen3-Max Max |
| IFEval | 90.6 | 93.7 | 3.1 | Qwen3-Max Max |
| TruthfulQA | 86.5 | 89.3 | 2.8 | Qwen3-Max Max |
| HellaSwag | 90.9 | 91.4 | 0.5 | Qwen3-Max Max |
| MMMU | 82.3 | 78.9 | 3.4 | o3 Reasoning |
| Arena Elo | 1456.9 | 1467.7 | 10.8 | Qwen3-Max Max |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, o3 Reasoning costs about $31.22 per million tokens and Qwen3-Max Max costs about $32.41. o3 Reasoning is roughly 4% cheaper than Qwen3-Max Max. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Qwen3-Max Max has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens, compared with 200,000 for o3 Reasoning. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, o3 Reasoning wins 3, Qwen3-Max Max wins 9, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Qwen3-Max Max leads o3 Reasoning by 0.6 points (85.9 versus 85.3).
The price picture favours o3 Reasoning. The context picture favours Qwen3-Max Max. 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 Max for quality-sensitive work and o3 Reasoning for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose o3 Reasoning if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
Choose Qwen3-Max Max if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- You need the larger 400,000-token context window.
- You need the larger 65,536-token output limit.
FAQ
Is o3 Reasoning better than Qwen3-Max Max?
On the index average, Qwen3-Max Max leads o3 Reasoning by 0.6 points (85.9 versus 85.3). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. o3 Reasoning wins 3 benchmarks, Qwen3-Max Max wins 9.
Which is cheaper, o3 Reasoning or Qwen3-Max Max?
o3 Reasoning is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $31.22 per million tokens, versus $32.41 for Qwen3-Max Max.
Which has the larger context window?
Qwen3-Max Max has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens. o3 Reasoning has 200,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
o3 Reasoning is proprietary; Qwen3-Max Max is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Qwen3-Max Max for quality-sensitive work and o3 Reasoning for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.