AI model comparison

Qwen3.6 35B A3B vs Qwen3.5-35B-A3B

Pricing, context window, benchmarks, and features compared side by side. Or skip the guesswork and send one prompt to both.

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B is an open-weight multimodal model from Alibaba Cloud with 35 billion total parameters and 3 billion active parameters per token.

Input / 1M
$0.15
Output / 1M
$1
Context
262K

The Qwen3.5 Series 35B-A3B is a native vision-language model designed with a hybrid architecture that integrates linear attention mechanisms and a sparse mixture-of-experts model, achieving higher inference efficiency.

Input / 1M
$0.08
Output / 1M
$0.75
Context
262K

At a glance

Quick verdict

How the two models stack up on the things people ask about most.

Lower price

qwen logo

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B

1.5x cheaper for a typical chat

Higher intelligence score

qwen logo

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B

19.3 vs 18.2 on Artificial Analysis

Larger context window

Tie

262K vs 262K tokens

Newer release

qwen logo

Qwen3.6 35B A3B

Released April 27, 2026

Benchmarks

Benchmark scores

Independent scores from Artificial Analysis. Higher is better.

Intelligence index

qwen logoQwen3.6 35B A3B18.2
qwen logoQwen3.5-35B-A3B19.3

Coding index

qwen logoQwen3.6 35B A3B41.9
qwen logoQwen3.5-35B-A3BNot available

Agentic index

qwen logoQwen3.6 35B A3B13.1
qwen logoQwen3.5-35B-A3BNot available

Pricing

Qwen3.6 35B A3B vs Qwen3.5-35B-A3B API pricing

Per-token API rates. Cheaper option highlighted.

Metricqwen logoQwen3.6 35B A3Bqwen logoQwen3.5-35B-A3B
Input tokensPer 1M tokens$0.15$0.08
Output tokensPer 1M tokens$1$0.75
Cached input (read)Per 1M tokens$0.05$0.04
Cache writePer 1M tokensNot availableNot available

What it costs in practice

Estimated cost per 1,000 requests at standard rates. Coding and long-document figures also show the cost when the input is already cached.

Chat message

2K in, 500 out

qwen logoQwen3.6 35B A3B$0.80
qwen logoQwen3.5-35B-A3B$0.54

Coding task

30K in, 4K out

qwen logoQwen3.6 35B A3B$8.50$5.50 cached
qwen logoQwen3.5-35B-A3B$5.40$4.20 cached

Long document summary

150K in, 2K out

qwen logoQwen3.6 35B A3B$24.50$9.50 cached
qwen logoQwen3.5-35B-A3B$13.50$7.50 cached

Specs

Context window and capabilities

How much each model can read, how much it can write, and what it accepts as input.

Metricqwen logoQwen3.6 35B A3Bqwen logoQwen3.5-35B-A3B
Context window262K tokens262K tokens
Max output236K tokens33K tokens
Input typesImage, Text, VideoImage, Text, Video
Output typesTextText
Reasoning effort levelsNot availableNot available
Default reasoning effortNot availableNot available
Release dateApril 27, 2026February 25, 2026

Features

Supported features

API features available for each model.

Metricqwen logoQwen3.6 35B A3Bqwen logoQwen3.5-35B-A3B
Tool callingSupportedSupported
Structured outputsSupportedSupported
JSON modeSupportedSupported
ReasoningSupportedSupported
TemperatureSupportedSupported
Stop sequencesSupportedSupported
Deterministic seedSupportedSupported
Verbosity controlNot supportedNot supported

Our take

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B is 1.5x cheaper for a typical chat. Qwen3.5-35B-A3B scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (19.3 vs 18.2). The right pick depends on your workload, so the quickest way to settle it is to send the same prompt to both and compare.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Is Qwen3.6 35B A3B or Qwen3.5-35B-A3B cheaper?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B is cheaper for a typical chat (2K input tokens and 500 output tokens). Qwen3.5-35B-A3B costs $0.08 per 1M input tokens and $0.75 per 1M output tokens, while Qwen3.6 35B A3B costs $0.15 per 1M input tokens and $1 per 1M output tokens.

Which has a bigger context window, Qwen3.6 35B A3B or Qwen3.5-35B-A3B?

Qwen3.6 35B A3B supports up to 262K tokens of context, compared with 262K for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.

Is Qwen3.6 35B A3B smarter than Qwen3.5-35B-A3B?

On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, Qwen3.6 35B A3B scores 18.2 and Qwen3.5-35B-A3B scores 19.3, putting Qwen3.5-35B-A3B ahead. Benchmarks don't capture everything, so the best test is running your own prompts through both.

Can I use Qwen3.6 35B A3B and Qwen3.5-35B-A3B at the same time?

Yes. Shortcut Chat sends one prompt to multiple models at once, so you can see Qwen3.6 35B A3B and Qwen3.5-35B-A3B answer side by side and keep the better response.

qwen logoqwen logo

Why choose? Ask both.

Send one prompt to Qwen3.6 35B A3B and Qwen3.5-35B-A3B at the same time. Compare the answers side by side and keep the best one.