Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Qwen3.6 27B (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 34.6 points higher (56.0 vs 21.4) but costs 6.3× as much to run the benchmark ($7260 vs $1145; 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 21.4, and Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) when 21.4 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.0 | 21.4 | −61.8% Qwen3.6 27B (Reasonin… is 61.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $7,259.50 | $1,145.36 | −84.2% Qwen3.6 27B (Reasonin… is 84.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 419.55s | 111.39s | −73.5% Qwen3.6 27B (Reasonin… is 73.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.60 / $3.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback): 61.8% less intelligence, 84.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 73.5% 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.
- Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5/qwen3-6-27b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5/qwen3-6-27b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill