Qwen3.7 Max vs Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Qwen3.7 Max by Alibaba or Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) 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
Qwen3.7 Max scores 1.9 points higher (29.5 vs 27.6) but costs 2.0× as much to run the benchmark ($2277 vs $1165; flagship vs premium cost classes). Pick Qwen3.7 Max when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3.8 27B (Medium).
| Metric | Qwen3.7 Max | Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 29.5 | 27.6 | −6.4% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 6.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,277.12 | $1,165.00 | −48.8% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 48.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 16.63s | 56.59s | +240.3% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 240.3% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.50 / $7.50 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) vs Qwen3.7 Max: 6.4% less intelligence, 48.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 240.3% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Qwen3.7 Max is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Qwen3.7 MaxQwen3.8 27B (Medium)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/qwen3-7-max/qwen3-8-27b-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/qwen3-7-max/qwen3-8-27b-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill