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Comparison · 2 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Qwen3.5 Plus vs Qwen3.6 Plus

Too close to call on our weighted score (Qwen3.5 Plus 66, Qwen3.6 Plus 66). The right pick depends on what you value most.

  1. 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

  2. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.6 Plus

    Released Apr 2, 2026

    66/100
    • ECI147.6
    • Price$0.50 / $3.00
    • Context1M
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.6 Plus

  3. Add a model

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01 — Verdict

Too close to call

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within a point (Qwen3.5 Plus 66/100, Qwen3.6 Plus 66/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3.6 Plus for raw capability and Qwen3.5 Plus on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityQwen3.6 PlusCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.6 Plus 147.6 · Qwen3.5 Plus 146.8
  • Lowest priceQwen3.5 PlusQwen3.5 Plus $0.90 · Qwen3.6 Plus $1.13 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextAbout the sameQwen3.5 Plus 1,000,000 · Qwen3.6 Plus 1,000,000 tokens
  • Widest inputsSame inputsQwen3.5 Plus: Text, Images, Video · Qwen3.6 Plus: Text, Images, Video
  • Self-hostingNo open weightsBoth are available only through APIs
How the score is built
MeasureWeightQwen3.5 PlusQwen3.6 Plus
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%7475
Price25%5247
Inputs & features15%7070
Context window10%6060
Overall100%66/10066/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

Qwen3.5 Plus vs Qwen3.6 Plus specifications side by side
SpecificationQwen3.5 PlusAlibaba (Qwen)Qwen3.6 PlusAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)146.8147.6 (best)
ECI rank#65 of 148#59 of 148 (best)
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions84.9%88.4% (best)
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics—38.3%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics86.7%93.3% (best)
SWE-bench VerifiedFixing real GitHub issues—57.9%
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions25.4%44.1% (best)
Price per million tokens
Input$0.40 (best)$0.50
Output$2.40 (best)$3.00
Cached input—$0.05
Blended (3:1)$0.90 (best)$1.13
Long-context rateSame rateOver 256K: $2.00 / $6.00
Price sourceOfficial Alibaba APIOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window1,000,000 tokens1,000,000 tokens
Max output65,536 tokens65,536 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYes
ImagesYesYes
PDFsNoNo
AudioNoNo
VideoYesYes
ReasoningYesYes
Tool callingYesYes
Structured outputNoNo
Availability
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
API model IDqwen3.5-plusqwen3.6-plus
API providers1018 (best)
ReleasedFeb 16, 2026Apr 2, 2026
Knowledge cutoffApr 2025Apr 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.

  • Qwen3.5 Plus$8.80
  • Qwen3.6 Plus$11.00
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Qwen3.5 Plus or Qwen3.6 Plus?

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within a point (Qwen3.5 Plus 66/100, Qwen3.6 Plus 66/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3.6 Plus for raw capability and Qwen3.5 Plus on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5 Plus or Qwen3.6 Plus?

Qwen3.5 Plus is cheaper at $0.40 input / $2.40 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). Qwen3.6 Plus costs $0.50 input / $3.00 output per million tokens (official Alibaba 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 $1.13 for Qwen3.6 Plus (1.3× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen3.6 Plus scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.6 Plus 147.6 (#59 of 148) and Qwen3.5 Plus 146.8 (#65 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (145.4–149.3 vs 144.6–148.1), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen3.6 Plus 88.4%, Qwen3.5 Plus 84.9%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3.6 Plus 93.3%, Qwen3.5 Plus 86.7%; SimpleQA Verified — Qwen3.6 Plus 44.1%, Qwen3.5 Plus 25.4%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Qwen3.5 Plus yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen3.6 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 and Qwen3.6 Plus share the same 1,000,000-token context window. Maximum output per response: Qwen3.5 Plus up to 65,536, Qwen3.6 Plus up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Qwen3.5 Plus accepts text, images and video; Qwen3.6 Plus accepts text, images and video. They handle the same number of input types.

Are any of these open source?

No. Qwen3.5 Plus and Qwen3.6 Plus are proprietary and only available through APIs and apps.

Which is newer?

Qwen3.6 Plus is the newest, released Apr 2, 2026. Qwen3.5 Plus came out Feb 16, 2026. Knowledge cutoff: Qwen3.5 Plus Apr 2025, Qwen3.6 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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