Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallbac… scores 43.3 points higher (56.0 vs 12.7) but costs 31× as much to run the benchmark ($7260 vs $234; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallbac… when you need intelligence above 12.7, and Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) when 12.7 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.0 | 12.7 | −77.3% Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 … is 77.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $7,259.50 | $233.56 | −96.8% Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 … is 96.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 465.48s | 22.73s | −95.1% Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 … is 95.1% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.23 / $2.30 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback): 77.3% less intelligence, 96.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 95.1% faster end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5/qwen3-235b-a22b-instruct-2507-reasoning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5/qwen3-235b-a22b-instruct-2507-reasoning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill