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Phi-3.5 Mini vs Qwen 2.5 Max: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Pricing verified Apr 8, 2026

⚡ Quick Answer

Compare Phi-3.5 Mini and Qwen 2.5 Max across pricing, benchmarks, and capabilities.

Updated: April 8, 2026 · ✓ Pricing verified

Side-by-Side Comparison

FeaturePhi-3.5 MiniQwen 2.5 Max
ProviderMicrosoftAlibaba
Input Price / 1M tokens$0.130$0.160
Output Price / 1M tokens$0.520$0.640
Context Window
128K
128K
Max Output Tokens
4,096
8,192
Arena ELO
1,160
1,260
Coding ELO
1,165
1,250
TTFT (ms)
150
240
Tokens/sec
100
80
MultimodalNoNo
JSON ModeYesYes
Function CallingYesYes
VisionNoNo
When to Use Phi-3.5 Mini

Phi-3.5 Mini excels at cost-effective, fast-inference tasks.

Strengths:

  • Very cheap
  • Fast
  • Large context

Best for:

cost-effectivefast-inference
When to Use Qwen 2.5 Max

Qwen 2.5 Max 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

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