Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs Qwen Turbo

Performance benchmarks + pricing comparison — updated April 2026

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

Anthropic

Previous generation Sonnet. Still excellent for coding tasks at the same price point.

Input$3.00/M
Output$15.00/M
Context200K tokens
Best ForCoding assistants, web development, data analysis
Benchmark72/100

Qwen Turbo

Qwen

Fastest and cheapest Qwen model. Good for high-volume tasks.

Input$0.080/M
Output$0.240/M
Context1M tokens
Best ForHigh-volume tasks, simple coding
Benchmark42/100

Benchmark Performance Comparison

Third-party benchmark scores — higher is better. Data sourced from SWE-bench, LiveCodeBench, HumanEval, and BigCodeBench.

BenchmarkClaude 3.5 SonnetQwen TurboLeader
Overall Score 72 42 Claude 3.5 Sonnet leads by 30pts
SWE-bench Verified 68 35 Claude 3.5 Sonnet leads by 33pts
LiveCodeBench 75 44 Claude 3.5 Sonnet leads by 31pts
HumanEval 90 65 Claude 3.5 Sonnet leads by 25pts
BigCodeBench 58 28 Claude 3.5 Sonnet leads by 30pts

Cost Comparison by Scenario

Estimated cost per project with 30% cache hit rate. Actual costs may vary based on usage patterns.

ScenarioClaude 3.5 SonnetQwen TurboSavings
Small Script (1K lines) $0.62 $0.01 Qwen Turbo saves $0.61 (98%)
Medium Feature (10K lines) $4.66 $0.08 Qwen Turbo saves $4.58 (98%)
Large Project (50K lines) $23.29 $0.38 Qwen Turbo saves $22.91 (98%)
Code Review (5K lines) $1.20 $0.02 Qwen Turbo saves $1.18 (98%)

Value Analysis (Price per Benchmark Score Point)

Lower is better — how much you pay for each point of benchmark performance.

ModelOverall ScorePrice per Score PointVerdict
Claude 3.5 Sonnet 72 $0.042/pt Higher cost per point
Qwen Turbo 42 $0.002/pt Better value

Qwen Turbo delivers the best value at $0.002 per score point.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

  • + Balanced performance
  • + Computer use capability
  • + Artifact generation
  • - Older architecture
  • - Falling behind Sonnet 4

Qwen Turbo

  • + Cheapest option
  • + Fast
  • - Basic coding only

Verdict

Qwen Turbo is cheaper at $0.080/M, but Claude 3.5 Sonnet scores higher on benchmarks (72 vs 42).

Choose Qwen Turbo for cost-sensitive projects, Claude 3.5 Sonnet when performance matters most.

Compare with Other Models