Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Qwen3.5 397B A17B (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 37.6 points higher (56.0 vs 18.4) but costs 7.7× as much to run the benchmark ($7260 vs $941; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallbac… when you need intelligence above 18.4, and Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) when 18.4 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.0 | 18.4 | −67.1% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 67.1% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $7,259.50 | $940.97 | −87.0% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 87.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 447.79s | 65.15s | −85.5% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 85.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.60 / $3.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback): 67.1% less intelligence, 87.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 85.5% 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.
- Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5/qwen3-5-397b-a17b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5/qwen3-5-397b-a17b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill