Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) vs Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) 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.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) scores 16.8 points higher (38.2 vs 21.4) but costs 6.1× as much to run the benchmark ($6998 vs $1145; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) when you need intelligence above 21.4, and Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) when 21.4 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) | Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 38.2 | 21.4 | −44.0% Qwen3.6 27B (Reasonin… is 44.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,998.25 | $1,145.36 | −83.6% Qwen3.6 27B (Reasonin… is 83.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 200.39s | 110.87s | −44.7% Qwen3.6 27B (Reasonin… is 44.7% 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 (Max): 44.0% less intelligence, 83.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 44.7% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) 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.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Max)Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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