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Alibaba (Qwen) · Released Apr 20, 2026

Qwen3.6 Max Preview

Flagship Qwen model for complex reasoning, coding, and agentic workflows.

  • Proprietary
  • Reasoning
  • Tool calling
Capability
149.2ECI · #54 of 148
Input
$1.30per 1M tokens
Output
$7.80per 1M tokens
Context
262K66K max output
Pricing

What it costs

Input
$1.30per million tokens
Output
$7.80per million tokens
Cached input
$0.13per million tokens
Cache write
$1.63per million tokens
Blended (3:1)
$2.92pricier than 74% of priced models

Typical monthly bills

Monthly usageEstimated cost
Side project2M input + 0.5M output tokens$6.50
Team assistant25M input + 5M output tokens$71.50
Production app250M input + 50M output tokens$715.00

Official Alibaba API price, as listed on models.dev.

Capability

Independent benchmarks

149.2Epoch Capabilities Index
#54 of 148 scored models
88Median 146167

The shaded band is Epoch AI’s confidence range (147.6–152.0); the tick marks the median scored model.

  • GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions87.4%
  • OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics91.1%
  • SWE-bench VerifiedFixing real GitHub issues76.7%
  • SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions52.0%

Scores from Epoch AI, run independently of Alibaba (Qwen).

Specifications

The details

Lab
Alibaba (Qwen)
Released
Apr 20, 2026
Knowledge cutoff
Apr 2025
Context window
262,144 tokens
Max output
65,536 tokens
Inputs
Text
Output
Text
Reasoning
Thinking budget
Tool calling
Yes
Structured output
No
Weights
Proprietary
API model ID
qwen3.6-max-previewon Alibaba
Availability
10 API providerslisted on models.dev

Alibaba model documentation

Same lab

More from Alibaba (Qwen)

Questions

About Qwen3.6 Max Preview

How much does Qwen3.6 Max Preview cost?

Qwen3.6 Max Preview costs $1.30 input / $7.80 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). Cached input is $0.13 per million tokens, and writing to the cache costs $1.63. At a 3:1 input-to-output mix that is $2.92 per million tokens, more expensive than 74% of the 360 priced models we track.

What is the context window of Qwen3.6 Max Preview?

Qwen3.6 Max Preview accepts up to 262,144 tokens per request and can write up to 65,536 tokens in one response.

How good is Qwen3.6 Max Preview?

Epoch AI gives Qwen3.6 Max Preview a Capabilities Index score of 149.2 (likely range 147.6–152.0), ranking it #54 of 148 models Epoch has scored. Epoch AI benchmark results: GPQA Diamond 87.4%, OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 91.1%, SWE-bench Verified 76.7%, SimpleQA Verified 52.0%.

Is Qwen3.6 Max Preview open source?

No. Qwen3.6 Max Preview is proprietary; you use it through Alibaba’s API or partner platforms.

What inputs does Qwen3.6 Max Preview support?

Qwen3.6 Max Preview accepts text and replies in text. It is a reasoning model, supports tool calling.

When was Qwen3.6 Max Preview released?

Alibaba (Qwen) released Qwen3.6 Max Preview on Apr 20, 2026. Its training data runs to Apr 2025.

What are the best alternatives to Qwen3.6 Max Preview?

The closest current models from other labs on capability, price and release date are GLM-5.1 (Z.ai (Zhipu), ECI 149.9, $1.40 / $4.40), Grok 4.3 (xAI, ECI 149.2, $1.25 / $2.50), GPT-5.4 mini (OpenAI, ECI 148.8, $0.75 / $4.50) and Kimi K2.7 Code (Moonshot AI, ECI 150.0, $0.95 / $4.00).