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Comparison · 2 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

o4-mini vs Qwen3.5 Plus

Qwen3.5 Plus comes out ahead, 66 to 59 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.

  1. OpenAI

    o4-mini

    Released Apr 16, 2025Deprecated

    59/100
    • ECI145.6
    • Price$1.10 / $4.40
    • Context200K
    Full specs Remove o4-mini
  2. Our pick

    Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.5 Plus

    Released Feb 16, 2026

    66/100
    • ECI146.8
    • Price$0.40 / $2.40
    • Context1M
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.5 Plus

  3. Add a model

    Make it a three-way comparison.

01 — Verdict

Qwen3.5 Plus is our pick

Qwen3.5 Plus is the better all-round choice, scoring 66/100 against o4-mini (59). It leads on price and context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityQwen3.5 PlusCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 Plus 146.8 · o4-mini 145.6
  • Lowest priceQwen3.5 PlusQwen3.5 Plus $0.90 · o4-mini $1.93 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextQwen3.5 PlusQwen3.5 Plus 1,000,000 · o4-mini 200,000 tokens
  • Widest inputsQwen3.5 Pluso4-mini: Text, Images · Qwen3.5 Plus: Text, Images, Video
  • Self-hostingNo open weightsBoth are available only through APIs
How the score is built
MeasureWeighto4-miniQwen3.5 Plus
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%7374
Price25%3652
Inputs & features15%7070
Context window10%3260
Overall100%59/10066/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

o4-mini vs Qwen3.5 Plus specifications side by side
Specificationo4-miniOpenAIQwen3.5 PlusAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)145.6146.8 (best)
ECI rank#76 of 148#65 of 148 (best)
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions79.6%84.9% (best)
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics36.1%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics81.7%86.7% (best)
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions19.6%25.4% (best)
Price per million tokens
Input$1.10$0.40 (best)
Output$4.40$2.40 (best)
Cached input$0.275—
Blended (3:1)$1.93$0.90 (best)
Long-context rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial OpenAI APIOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window200,000 tokens1,000,000 tokens (best)
Max output100,000 tokens (best)65,536 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYes
ImagesYesYes
PDFsNoNo
AudioNoNo
VideoNoYes
ReasoningYeslow · medium · highYes
Tool callingYesYes
Structured outputYesNo
Availability
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
API model IDo4-miniqwen3.5-plus
API providers19 (best)10
ReleasedApr 16, 2025Feb 16, 2026
Knowledge cutoffMay 2024Apr 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.

  • o4-mini$19.80
  • Qwen3.5 Plus$8.80
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: o4-mini or Qwen3.5 Plus?

Qwen3.5 Plus is the better all-round choice, scoring 66/100 against o4-mini (59). It leads on price and context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, o4-mini or Qwen3.5 Plus?

Qwen3.5 Plus is cheaper at $0.40 input / $2.40 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). o4-mini costs $1.10 input / $4.40 output per million tokens (official OpenAI API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.90 per million tokens for Qwen3.5 Plus versus $1.93 for o4-mini (2.1× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen3.5 Plus scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 Plus 146.8 (#65 of 148) and o4-mini 145.6 (#76 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (144.6–148.1 vs 143.0–147.4), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen3.5 Plus 84.9%, o4-mini 79.6%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3.5 Plus 86.7%, o4-mini 81.7%; SimpleQA Verified — Qwen3.5 Plus 25.4%, o4-mini 19.6%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for o4-mini and Qwen3.5 Plus yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen3.5 Plus 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?

Qwen3.5 Plus has the largest context window at 1,000,000 tokens, against 200,000 for o4-mini. Maximum output per response: o4-mini up to 100,000, Qwen3.5 Plus up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

o4-mini accepts text and images; Qwen3.5 Plus accepts text, images and video. Qwen3.5 Plus handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

No. o4-mini and Qwen3.5 Plus are proprietary and only available through APIs and apps.

Which is newer?

Qwen3.5 Plus is the newest, released Feb 16, 2026. o4-mini came out Apr 16, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: o4-mini May 2024, Qwen3.5 Plus 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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