Claude 3 Opus vs Qwen Turbo

Performance benchmarks + pricing comparison — updated April 2026

Claude 3 Opus

Anthropic

First generation Opus. Highest reasoning capability in the Claude 3 family.

Input$15.00/M
Output$75.00/M
Context200K tokens
Best ForDeep analysis, complex coding tasks
Benchmark78/100

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 OpusQwen TurboLeader
Overall Score 78 42 Claude 3 Opus leads by 36pts
SWE-bench Verified 74 35 Claude 3 Opus leads by 39pts
LiveCodeBench 80 44 Claude 3 Opus leads by 36pts
HumanEval 94 65 Claude 3 Opus leads by 29pts
BigCodeBench 64 28 Claude 3 Opus leads by 36pts

Cost Comparison by Scenario

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

ScenarioClaude 3 OpusQwen TurboSavings
Small Script (1K lines) $2.77 $0.01 Qwen Turbo saves $2.77 (100%)
Medium Feature (10K lines) $20.25 $0.08 Qwen Turbo saves $20.17 (100%)
Large Project (50K lines) $101.25 $0.38 Qwen Turbo saves $100.87 (100%)
Code Review (5K lines) $4.50 $0.02 Qwen Turbo saves $4.48 (100%)

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 Opus 78 $0.192/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 Opus

  • + Strong reasoning
  • + Proven track record
  • - Older generation
  • - Expensive

Qwen Turbo

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

Verdict

Qwen Turbo is cheaper at $0.080/M, but Claude 3 Opus scores higher on benchmarks (78 vs 42).

Choose Qwen Turbo for cost-sensitive projects, Claude 3 Opus when performance matters most.

Compare with Other Models