LLMversus

DeepSeek V3 vs Qwen 2.5 Max: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Pricing verified Apr 20, 2026By LLMversusUpdated June 14, 2026View methodology

⚡ Quick Answer

Qwen 2.5 Max is significantly cheaper at $0.16/$0.64 per million tokens vs $0.27/$1.10. DeepSeek V3 is stronger for coding with a coding ELO of 1300 vs 1250. DeepSeek V3 ranks higher overall with an Arena ELO of 1280 vs 1260.

Updated: April 20, 2026 · ✓ Pricing verified

Side-by-Side Comparison

FeatureDeepSeek V3Qwen 2.5 Max
ProviderDeepSeekAlibaba
Input Price / 1M tokens$0.259$0.160
Output Price / 1M tokens$0.420$0.640
Context Window
128K
128K
Max Output Tokens
8,192
8,192
Arena ELO
1,280
1,260
Coding ELO
1,300
1,250
TTFT (ms)
220
240
Tokens/sec
85
80
MultimodalNoNo
JSON ModeYesYes
Function CallingYesYes
VisionNoNo
When to Use DeepSeek V3

Choose DeepSeek V3 when you need: excellent coding performance for its price, open-source and self-hostable, very competitive benchmarks, extremely affordable. It excels at coding, general-purpose, cost-sensitive, open-source tasks.

Strengths:

  • Excellent coding performance for its price
  • Open-source and self-hostable
  • Very competitive benchmarks
  • Extremely affordable

Best for:

codinggeneral-purposecost-sensitiveopen-source
When to Use Qwen 2.5 Max

Choose Qwen 2.5 Max when you need: extremely competitive pricing, strong coding and general capabilities, open-source model available, good multilingual support including chinese. It excels at coding, general-purpose, cost-sensitive, open-source tasks. It is also the more cost-effective option between the two.

Strengths:

  • Extremely competitive pricing
  • Strong coding and general capabilities
  • Open-source model available
  • Good multilingual support including Chinese

Best for:

codinggeneral-purposecost-sensitiveopen-source

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Comparisons

Claude Opus 4 vs DeepSeek V3Claude Opus 4 vs Qwen 2.5 MaxDeepSeek V3 vs Gemini 2 5 ProGemini 2 5 Pro vs Qwen 2.5 MaxDeepSeek V3 vs O3O3 vs Qwen 2.5 MaxDeepseek R1 vs DeepSeek V3Deepseek R1 vs Qwen 2.5 MaxDeepSeek V3 vs O1O1 vs Qwen 2.5 MaxDeepSeek V3 vs Qwen 3 235bQwen 2.5 Max vs Qwen 3 235bDeepSeek V3 vs Gemini Exp 1206Gemini Exp 1206 vs Qwen 2.5 MaxDeepSeek V3 vs Gpt 4 5Gpt 4 5 vs Qwen 2.5 MaxDeepSeek V3 vs Groq Deepseek R1Groq Deepseek R1 vs Qwen 2.5 MaxDeepSeek V3 vs Llama 4 MaverickLlama 4 Maverick vs Qwen 2.5 Max