Which is cheaper, Grok 3 or Qwen 2.5 Max?

Qwen 2.5 Max is cheaper for both input ($0.16/M tokens) and output ($0.64/M tokens), compared to Grok 3 at $3.00/$15.00 per million tokens.

Which is faster, Grok 3 or Qwen 2.5 Max?

Grok 3 is faster at 80 tokens/sec with a TTFT of 300ms, compared to Qwen 2.5 Max at 80 tokens/sec and 240ms TTFT.

Which has a bigger context window, Grok 3 or Qwen 2.5 Max?

Grok 3 has a 128K token context window, which is equal to Qwen 2.5 Max's 128K context window.

Which is better for coding, Grok 3 or Qwen 2.5 Max?

Grok 3 has a higher coding ELO of 1290 compared to Qwen 2.5 Max's 1250, making it the stronger choice for code generation and programming tasks.

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

Name: Grok 3 vs Qwen 2.5 Max — Pricing, Benchmarks & Speed Comparison 2026
Creator: LLMversus
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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 $3.00/$15.00. Grok 3 is stronger for coding with a coding ELO of 1290 vs 1250. Grok 3 ranks higher overall with an Arena ELO of 1300 vs 1260.

Updated: April 20, 2026 · ✓ Pricing verified

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	Grok 3	Qwen 2.5 Max
Provider	xAI	Alibaba
Input Price / 1M tokens	$3.00	$0.160
Output Price / 1M tokens	$15.00	$0.640
Context Window	200K	128K
Max Output Tokens	8,192	8,192
Arena ELO	1,285	1,260
Coding ELO	1,280	1,250
TTFT (ms)	200	240
Tokens/sec	90	80
Multimodal	No	No
JSON Mode	Yes	Yes
Function Calling	Yes	Yes
Vision	No	No

When to Use Grok 3

Choose Grok 3 when you need: strong benchmark performance, good reasoning capabilities, vision and multimodal support, fast for its capability tier. It excels at general-purpose, reasoning, coding tasks.

Strengths:

Latest xAI model
Strong reasoning
Large context

Best for:

general-purposecodingreasoning

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

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

Side-by-Side Comparison

Frequently Asked Questions

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