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GPT-4.1 vs Qwen 2.5 Max: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Verdict

Qwen 2.5 Max is significantly cheaper at $0.16/$0.64 per million tokens vs $2.00/$8.00. GPT-4.1 is stronger for coding with a coding ELO of 1320 vs 1250. GPT-4.1 ranks higher overall with an Arena ELO of 1290 vs 1260. GPT-4.1 offers a larger 1048K context window vs 128K.

Side-by-Side Comparison

FeatureGPT-4.1Qwen 2.5 Max
ProviderOpenAIAlibaba
Input Price / 1M tokens$2.00$0.160
Output Price / 1M tokens$8.00$0.640
Context Window1.047576M128K
Max Output Tokens32,7688,192
Arena ELO1,2901,260
Coding ELO1,3201,250
TTFT (ms)260240
Tokens/sec8880
MultimodalYesNo
JSON ModeYesYes
Function CallingYesYes
VisionYesNo
When to Use GPT-4.1

Choose GPT-4.1 when you need: 1m token context window, excellent coding performance, strong instruction following, competitive pricing for its capability. It excels at coding, long-context, agents, general-purpose tasks. Its 1048K context window is larger, making it better for long-document processing.

Strengths:

  • 1M token context window
  • Excellent coding performance
  • Strong instruction following
  • Competitive pricing for its capability

Best for:

codinglong-contextagentsgeneral-purpose
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

Frequently Asked Questions

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