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Grok 3 Mini vs Qwen 2.5 Max: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Verdict

Qwen 2.5 Max is stronger for coding with a coding ELO of 1250 vs 1200. Grok 3 Mini is faster at 110 tokens/sec vs 80 tokens/sec. Qwen 2.5 Max ranks higher overall with an Arena ELO of 1260 vs 1220.

Side-by-Side Comparison

FeatureGrok 3 MiniQwen 2.5 Max
ProviderxAIAlibaba
Input Price / 1M tokens$0.300$0.160
Output Price / 1M tokens$0.500$0.640
Context Window128K128K
Max Output Tokens16,3848,192
Arena ELO1,2201,260
Coding ELO1,2001,250
TTFT (ms)180240
Tokens/sec11080
MultimodalNoNo
JSON ModeYesYes
Function CallingYesYes
VisionNoNo
When to Use Grok 3 Mini

Choose Grok 3 Mini when you need: very affordable pricing, fast response times, good for simple tasks, reasoning capabilities at low cost. It excels at chatbots, cost-sensitive, lightweight-tasks tasks.

Strengths:

  • Very affordable pricing
  • Fast response times
  • Good for simple tasks
  • Reasoning capabilities at low cost

Best for:

chatbotscost-sensitivelightweight-tasks
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.

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

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