Kimi K3.1 Pro vs Qwen3.6 Max
Full profiles: Kimi K3.1 Pro (Moonshot AI) and Qwen3.6 Max (Alibaba): every benchmark, price and rank.
Updated · Data from 7 sources
As of 24 Oct 2026, Kimi K3.1 Pro and Qwen3.6 Max (max) are neck and neck on quality (66.8 vs 62.3 on the BenchLeader Index, inside the ±6.9 margin of error), and Qwen3.6 Max (max) costs 1.4× less, which makes it the better buy for most workloads. Pick Kimi K3.1 Pro for reasoning (81 vs 58); pick Qwen3.6 Max for agents & tools (72 vs 67).
Kimi K3.1 Pro benchmarks 
Qwen3.6 Max benchmarks Which to pick for…
The pick's numbers come first. Category scores on the BenchLeader scale (50 is the average model, 15 points one standard deviation). High confidence means a lead of half a standard deviation or more; under one point is called either.
| Use case | Pick | Why | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agents & tool use | Qwen3.6 Max | 72 vs 67 category score | Medium |
| Reasoning | Kimi K3.1 Pro | 81 vs 58 category score; CritPt 24.6% vs 3.7% | High |
| Knowledge | Kimi K3.1 Pro | 75 vs 62 category score; AA-Omniscience 29.5 vs 9.2 | High |
| Long documents | Kimi K3.1 Pro | 68 vs 65 category score; AA-LCR 86.3% vs 80.7% | Medium |
| Chat quality (human preference) | – | Only Qwen3.6 Max has an Arena rating (65 category score) | Not comparable |
| Lowest cost | Qwen3.6 Max | $2.92 vs $4.00 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.109 vs $0.160 | – |
| High volume on a budget | Neither flagship | A smaller model is usually the better fit: Cheapest good LLMs, Fastest LLMs | – |
Key differences
- Kimi K3.1 Pro and Qwen3.6 Max (max) are neck and neck on quality (66.8 vs 62.3, within the ±6.9 margin).
- Kimi K3.1 Pro is stronger in composite, knowledge, long context, multimodal, reasoning.
- Qwen3.6 Max (max) is stronger in agents & tools, coding, human preference, instruction following, maths.
- Qwen3.6 Max (max) is 1.4× cheaper ($2.92 vs $4.00 per 1M blended).
At a glance
| Spec | Kimi K3.1 Pro | Qwen3.6 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Developer | Moonshot AI | Alibaba |
| Released | 23 Oct 2026 | 20 Apr 2026 |
| Context window (tokens) | 1,048,576 | 262,144 |
| Compared at | Kimi K3.1 Pro | Qwen3.6 Max (max) |
| Open weights | No | No |
| Price in / out / cached input per 1M | $2.00 / $10.00 / $0.200 | $1.30 / $7.80 / $0.130 |
Category by category
Category scores on the BenchLeader scale: 50 is the average evaluated model, 15 points is one standard deviation. A gap under one point is called level.
| Category | Kimi K3.1 Pro | Qwen3.6 Max (max) | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reasoning | 81.3 | 58.1 | Kimi K3.1 Pro |
| Coding | – | 56.7 | not comparable |
| Agents & tools | 67.3 | 72.1 | Qwen3.6 Max |
| Maths | – | 64.9 | not comparable |
| Knowledge | 74.8 | 62.3 | Kimi K3.1 Pro |
| Instruction following | – | 74.6 | not comparable |
| Human preference | – | 64.8 | not comparable |
| Multimodal | 67.0 | – | not comparable |
| Long context | 68.3 | 65.4 | Kimi K3.1 Pro |
| Composite | 75.8 | 61.2 | Kimi K3.1 Pro |
Where sources disagree
Across the 6 benchmarks both have, Kimi K3.1 Pro leads 6, Qwen3.6 Max leads 0. Every overall index that rates both puts Kimi K3.1 Pro ahead.
| Overall index | Kimi K3.1 Pro | Qwen3.6 Max (max) | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| BenchLeader Index | 66.8 | 62.3 | neck and neck |
| AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2 | 55.1 | 28.4 | Kimi K3.1 Pro |
Each publisher runs its own tasks, harnesses and effort settings, so their overall verdicts can differ; BenchLeader reconciles them on one scale. † measured at another effort setting of the same model (the publisher did not test the one compared here).
Price, speed and latency
List prices blended at three input tokens per output token. Per-task prices use the token counts on the methodology page; suite cost is what Artificial Analysis paid to run its whole Intelligence Index.
| Measure | Kimi K3.1 Pro | Qwen3.6 Max (max) |
|---|---|---|
| Blended price per 1M tokens | $4.00 | $2.92 |
| Input / output per 1M | $2.00 / $10.00 | $1.30 / $7.80 |
| Cached input per 1M | $0.200 | $0.130 |
| Price per task: chat reply | $0.0038 | $0.0029 |
| Price per task: summarize a 30-page report | $0.030 | $0.020 |
| Price per task: code edit | $0.027 | $0.019 |
| Price per task: agentic coding session | $0.160 | $0.109 |
| Price per task: structured extraction | $0.0060 | $0.0042 |
| Cost to run a full benchmark suite | $2.11 | – |
| Output speed | 81 tok/s | – |
| Time to first answer | 27.7 s | – |
| Time to a complete answer | 33.9 s | – |
Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 66.8 and takes 28 s to its first answer token. Qwen3.6 Max (max) scores 62.3. Higher effort means more thinking before the answer: better scores, longer waits and more tokens billed. How reasoning effort changes scores and cost.
Every benchmark
54 benchmarks, grouped by category; each name links to the board and its leaders. † measured at another effort setting of the same model, shown for reference and not counted as a win.
| Metric | Publisher | Kimi K3.1 Pro | Qwen3.6 Max (max) |
|---|---|---|---|
| BenchLeader Index | BenchLeader | 66.8 | 62.3 |
| Agents & tools score | BenchLeader | 67.3 | 72.1 |
| Composite score | BenchLeader | 75.8 | 61.2 |
| Knowledge score | BenchLeader | 74.8 | 62.3 |
| Long context score | BenchLeader | 68.3 | 65.4 |
| Multimodal score | BenchLeader | 67.0 | – |
| Reasoning score | BenchLeader | 81.3 | 58.1 |
| Coding score | BenchLeader | – | 56.7 |
| Human preference score | BenchLeader | – | 64.8 |
| Instruction following score | BenchLeader | – | 74.6 |
| Maths score | BenchLeader | – | 64.9 |
| Blended price $/M | BenchLeader | $4.00 | $2.92 |
| Output speed | BenchLeader | 81 tok/s | – |
| Time to first answer | BenchLeader | 27.7 s | – |
| Context window | BenchLeader | 1,048,576 tokens | 262,144 tokens |
| Reasoning | |||
| GPQA Diamond | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | – | 87.4% |
| SimpleBench | SimpleBench | – | 63.0% |
| Arena Hard Prompts | Arena (LMArena) | – | 1483 |
| LiveBench 2.0 Reasoning | LiveBench | 91.1% | – |
| GPQA Diamond (AA) | Artificial Analysis | – | 88.8% |
| Humanity's Last Exam (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 52.5% | 30.8% |
| CritPt | Artificial Analysis | 24.6% | 3.7% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | – | 19.0%† |
| LMCA | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | – | 42.5% |
| DTBench | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | – | 87.2% |
| Coding | |||
| SWE-bench Verified (Epoch) | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | – | 76.7% |
| Arena Coding | Arena (LMArena) | – | 1512 |
| Arena WebDev | Arena (LMArena) | – | 1482 |
| LiveBench 2.0 Coding | LiveBench | 81.8% | – |
| SciCode (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 60.8% | – |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | Vals AI | – | 72.8% |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 67.2% | – |
| FrontierCode 1.1 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 47.1% | – |
| Agents & tools | |||
| LiveBench Long Agentic | LiveBench | 49.5% | – |
| LiveBench Browser | LiveBench | 80.0% | – |
| Terminal-Bench Hard | Artificial Analysis | – | 43.9% |
| τ²-Bench Telecom (AA) | Artificial Analysis | – | 95.9% |
| GDPval-AA v2.1 | Artificial Analysis | 67.3% | – |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 (Vals) | Vals AI | – | 51.7% |
| Vending-Bench 2 | Andon Labs | – | 4254.2 |
Show all 54 benchmarks
| Metric | Publisher | Kimi K3.1 Pro | Qwen3.6 Max (max) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agents & tools | |||
| AutomationBench | Artificial Analysis | 73.3% | – |
| GDP.pdf (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 31.4% | – |
| AA-Briefcase v1.1 | Artificial Analysis | 1678 | – |
| CWE-Bench (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 60.8% | – |
| DeepSec-Bench (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 36.7% | – |
| CyberGym end-to-end (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 94.7% | – |
| Maths | |||
| OTIS Mock AIME | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | – | 91.1% |
| Arena Maths | Arena (LMArena) | – | 1476 |
| Knowledge | |||
| SimpleQA Verified | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | – | 52.0% |
| LiveBench 2.0 Data Analysis | LiveBench | 79.1% | – |
| LiveBench Research | LiveBench | 77.9% | – |
| AA-Omniscience | Artificial Analysis | 29.5 | 9.2 |
| CorpFin | Vals AI | – | 66.5% |
| CaseLaw v2 | Vals AI | – | 47.9% |
| AA-Omniscience: accuracy | Artificial Analysis | 51.0% | 37.9% |
| AA-Omniscience: non-hallucination | Artificial Analysis | 56.1% | 53.8% |
| Instruction following | |||
| IFBench | Artificial Analysis | – | 76.6% |
| Arena Instruction Following | Arena (LMArena) | – | 1452 |
| Human preference | |||
| Arena Text | Arena (LMArena) | – | 1461 |
| Arena Creative Writing | Arena (LMArena) | – | 1438 |
| Arena Multi-turn | Arena (LMArena) | – | 1468 |
| Arena Longer Queries | Arena (LMArena) | – | 1474 |
| Multimodal | |||
| LiveBench Design | LiveBench | 77.8% | – |
| MMMU-Pro | Artificial Analysis | 83.9% | – |
| Long context | |||
| AA-LCR | Artificial Analysis | 86.3% | 80.7% |
| Composite | |||
| Epoch Capabilities Index | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | – | 149.4 |
| LiveBench 2.0 | LiveBench | 76.7% | – |
| AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2 | Artificial Analysis | 55.1 | 28.4 |
| AA Cyber Index | Artificial Analysis | 64.1 | – |
Data as of 2026-10-24. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.
What changed
- Kimi K3.1 Pro: BenchLeader Index 65.6 → 66.8.
- Kimi K3.1 Pro: 5 new results (FrontierCode 1.1 (AA), AA Cyber Index, CWE-Bench (AA)…).
- Kimi K3.1 Pro: first results.
- Qwen3.6 Max (max): BenchLeader Index 62.8 → 62.3.
- Qwen3.6 Max (max): BenchLeader Index 63.3 → 62.8.
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- Qwen3.6 Max vs Gemini 4 Argon
- Qwen3.6 Max vs Muse Wonder Full
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- Kimi K3 vs Qwen3.6 Max
Rankings: Best LLM overall · Best LLM for agents · Best cheap LLMs
Kimi K3.1 Pro vs Qwen3.6 Max: questions
- Is Kimi K3.1 Pro better than Qwen3.6 Max?
- Kimi K3.1 Pro and Qwen3.6 Max (max) are neck and neck on quality (66.8 vs 62.3, within the ±6.9 margin). The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; the two are within the margin of error as of 2026-10-24, so check the category scores for your use.
- Which is cheaper, Kimi K3.1 Pro or Qwen3.6 Max, and will that change?
- Qwen3.6 Max is cheaper today: $2.92 against $4.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. No price change has been announced for either.
- Is Kimi K3.1 Pro better than Qwen3.6 Max for agents and tool use?
- Qwen3.6 Max scores higher in agentic tasks (72 vs 67 on the category index, where 50 is average).
- Which is better for long documents?
- Kimi K3.1 Pro scores higher on long-context benchmarks (68 vs 65). Kimi K3.1 Pro accepts more context: 1,048,576 against 262,144 tokens for Qwen3.6 Max.
- Do independent benchmarks agree on Kimi K3.1 Pro vs Qwen3.6 Max?
- Across the 6 benchmarks both have, Kimi K3.1 Pro leads 6, Qwen3.6 Max leads 0. Every overall index that rates both puts Kimi K3.1 Pro ahead.
- When was Kimi K3.1 Pro released?
- Kimi K3.1 Pro was released on 23 Oct 2026.