Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) vs Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) by Alibaba 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
Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) scores 10.2 points higher (21.4 vs 11.2) but costs 3.5× as much to run the benchmark ($1145 vs $329; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 11.2, and Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) when 11.2 is enough.
| Metric | Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) | Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 11.2 | 21.4 | +91.1% Qwen3.6 27B (Reasonin… is 91.1% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $328.86 | $1,145.36 | +248.3% Qwen3.6 27B (Reasonin… is 3.5× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 43.82s | 111.40s | +154.2% Qwen3.6 27B (Reasonin… is 154.2% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.14 / $0.20 | $0.60 / $3.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Video | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) vs Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning): 91.1% more intelligence, 248.3% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 154.2% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
- Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/qwen3-5-9b/qwen3-6-27b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/qwen3-5-9b/qwen3-6-27b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill