ZMIME
Comparison · 2 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Qwen3 Max

Mistral Medium 3.5 comes out ahead, 55 to 50 on our weighted score, though Qwen3 Max is 20% cheaper per token.

  1. Our pick

    Mistral AI

    Mistral Medium 3.5

    Released Apr 29, 2026

    55/100
    • ECI141.4
    • Price$1.50 / $7.50
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Mistral Medium 3.5

  2. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3 Max

    Released Sep 23, 2025

    50/100
    • ECI142.4
    • Price$1.20 / $6.00
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3 Max

  3. Add a model

    Make it a three-way comparison.

01 — Verdict

Mistral Medium 3.5 is our pick

Mistral Medium 3.5 is the better all-round choice, scoring 55/100 against Qwen3 Max (50). It leads on inputs & features. Qwen3 Max wins on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityQwen3 MaxCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3 Max 142.4 · Mistral Medium 3.5 141.4
  • Lowest priceQwen3 MaxQwen3 Max $2.40 · Mistral Medium 3.5 $3.00 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextAbout the sameMistral Medium 3.5 262,144 · Qwen3 Max 262,144 tokens
  • Widest inputsMistral Medium 3.5Mistral Medium 3.5: Text, Images · Qwen3 Max: Text
  • Self-hostingMistral Medium 3.5Publishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightMistral Medium 3.5Qwen3 Max
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%6768
Price25%2732
Inputs & features15%7025
Context window10%3737
Overall100%55/10050/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.

Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Qwen3 Max specifications side by side
SpecificationMistral Medium 3.5Mistral AIQwen3 MaxAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)141.4142.4 (best)
ECI rank#95 of 148#91 of 148 (best)
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions—72.6%
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics—19.0%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics—73.3%
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions—48.8%
Price per million tokens
Input$1.50$1.20 (best)
Output$7.50$6.00 (best)
Cached input$0.15—
Blended (3:1)$3.00$2.40 (best)
Long-context rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Mistral APIOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window262,144 tokens262,144 tokens
Max output262,144 tokens (best)65,536 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYes
ImagesYesNo
PDFsNoNo
AudioNoNo
VideoNoNo
ReasoningYeshighNo
Tool callingYesYes
Structured outputYesNo
Availability
WeightsOpenProprietary
API model IDmistral-medium-2604qwen3-max
API providers1216 (best)
ReleasedApr 29, 2026Sep 23, 2025
Knowledge cutoff—Apr 2025
03 — Cost

What would a month cost?

Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.

  • Mistral Medium 3.5$30.00
  • Qwen3 Max$24.00
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Mistral Medium 3.5 or Qwen3 Max?

Mistral Medium 3.5 is the better all-round choice, scoring 55/100 against Qwen3 Max (50). It leads on inputs & features. Qwen3 Max wins on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Mistral Medium 3.5 or Qwen3 Max?

Qwen3 Max is cheaper at $1.20 input / $6.00 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). Mistral Medium 3.5 costs $1.50 input / $7.50 output per million tokens (official Mistral API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $2.40 per million tokens for Qwen3 Max versus $3.00 for Mistral Medium 3.5 (1.3× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen3 Max scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3 Max 142.4 (#91 of 148) and Mistral Medium 3.5 141.4 (#95 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (140.0–144.6 vs 138.4–143.7), so treat the gap as small.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Mistral Medium 3.5 and Qwen3 Max yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen3 Max leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. Both support tool calling for agent workflows.

Which has the bigger context window?

Mistral Medium 3.5 and Qwen3 Max share the same 262,144-token context window. Maximum output per response: Mistral Medium 3.5 up to 262,144, Qwen3 Max up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Mistral Medium 3.5 accepts text and images; Qwen3 Max accepts text. Mistral Medium 3.5 handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Mistral Medium 3.5 publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Qwen3 Max is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Mistral Medium 3.5 is the newest, released Apr 29, 2026. Qwen3 Max came out Sep 23, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Qwen3 Max Apr 2025.

How do you decide the winner?

Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Oct 4, 2026.

05 — Keep comparing

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