QwQ Plus vs Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct vs GPT-4.1 mini

GPT-4.1 mini is the better all-round choice, scoring 62/100 against Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct (39) and QwQ Plus (38). It leads on price, inputs & features and context window. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.

GPT-4.1 mini is cheaper at $0.40 input / $1.60 output per million tokens (official OpenAI API price). Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct costs $0.50 input / $2.00 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price); QwQ Plus costs $0.80 input / $2.40 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.70 per million tokens for GPT-4.1 mini versus $0.875 for Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct (1.3× as much) and $1.20 for QwQ Plus (1.7× as much).

There is no independent benchmark that covers all three models yet. QwQ Plus has not been scored yet, Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct has not been scored yet and GPT-4.1 mini has an ECI of 135.0.

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for QwQ Plus, Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct and GPT-4.1 mini yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. Test both on a sample of your own tasks. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.

GPT-4.1 mini has the largest context window at 1,047,576 tokens, against 131,072 for QwQ Plus and 131,072 for Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct. Maximum output per response: QwQ Plus up to 8,192, Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct up to 32,768, GPT-4.1 mini up to 32,768 tokens.

QwQ Plus accepts text; Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct accepts text; GPT-4.1 mini accepts text, images and PDFs. GPT-4.1 mini handles the widest range of inputs.

Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; QwQ Plus and GPT-4.1 mini is proprietary.

Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct is the newest, released Sep 2025. GPT-4.1 mini came out Apr 14, 2025; QwQ Plus came out Mar 5, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: QwQ Plus Apr 2024, Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct Apr 2025, GPT-4.1 mini Apr 2024.

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.