LLM Reference

Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Qwen3.5-35B-A3B

Claude Sonnet 4.5 (2025) and Qwen3.5-35B-A3B (2026) are frontier-tier reasoning models from Anthropic and Alibaba. Claude Sonnet 4.5 ships a 200k-token context window, while Qwen3.5-35B-A3B ships a 262k-token context window. On MMLU PRO, Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads by 0.7 pts. This comparison covers specs, pricing, API access, capabilities, benchmarks, input and output token costs, and production fit for coding and agent workloads.

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B is safer overall; choose Claude Sonnet 4.5 when vision-heavy evaluation matters.

Decision scorecard

Local evidence first
SignalClaude Sonnet 4.5Qwen3.5-35B-A3B
Best forreasoning-heavy apps, multimodal apps, and tool-calling agentsreasoning-heavy apps, tool-calling agents, and provider-routed production
Decision fitCoding, RAG, and AgentsCoding, RAG, and Agents
Context window200k262k
Cheapest output$15/1M tokens$1/1M tokens
Provider routes8 tracked2 tracked
Shared benchmarksMMLU PRO leader4 shared

Decision tradeoffs

Choose Claude Sonnet 4.5 when...
  • Claude Sonnet 4.5 holds a shared-benchmark lead on MMLU PRO, ahead by 0.7 points.
  • Claude Sonnet 4.5 has broader tracked provider coverage for fallback and route flexibility.
  • Claude Sonnet 4.5 uniquely exposes Vision and Multimodal in local model data.
  • Local decision data tags Claude Sonnet 4.5 for Coding, RAG, and Agents.
Choose Qwen3.5-35B-A3B when...
  • Qwen3.5-35B-A3B holds a shared-benchmark lead on Google-Proof Q&A, ahead by 1.1 points.
  • Qwen3.5-35B-A3B has the larger context window for long prompts, retrieval packs, or transcript analysis.
  • Qwen3.5-35B-A3B has the lower cheapest tracked output price at $1/1M tokens.
  • Local decision data tags Qwen3.5-35B-A3B for Coding, RAG, and Agents.

Monthly cost at traffic

Estimate token spend from the cheapest tracked input and output route or tier on this page.

Lower estimate Qwen3.5-35B-A3B

Claude Sonnet 4.5

$6,150

Cheapest tracked route/tier: Microsoft Foundry

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B

$361

Cheapest tracked route/tier: OpenRouter

Estimated monthly gap: $5,789. Batch, cache, alternate speed tiers, and negotiated pricing are excluded from this local estimate.

Switch friction

Claude Sonnet 4.5 -> Qwen3.5-35B-A3B
  • Provider overlap exists on OpenRouter; start route-level A/B tests there.
  • Qwen3.5-35B-A3B is $14/1M tokens lower on cheapest tracked output pricing before cache, batch, or negotiated discounts.
  • Check replacement coverage for Vision and Multimodal before moving production traffic.
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B -> Claude Sonnet 4.5
  • Provider overlap exists on OpenRouter; start route-level A/B tests there.
  • Claude Sonnet 4.5 is $14/1M tokens higher on cheapest tracked output pricing, so quality gains need to justify the spend.
  • Claude Sonnet 4.5 adds Vision and Multimodal in local capability data.

Specs

Specification
Released2025-09-292026-02-24
Context window200k262k
Parameters—35B
ArchitectureDecoder OnlyMixture of Experts
LicenseProprietaryApache 2.0OSI-approved
OpennessProprietaryOpen source
WeightsNot releasedAvailable
CodeUnknownUnknown
Commercial useCommercial use: conditionalCommercial use: permitted
Knowledge cutoff2025-12-

Pricing and availability

Pricing attributeClaude Sonnet 4.5Qwen3.5-35B-A3B
Input price
0-200,001t
$3/1M tokens
200,001t+
$6/1M tokens
$0.14/1M tokens
Output price
0-200,001t
$15/1M tokens
200,001t+
$22.50/1M tokens
$1/1M tokens
Providers
Microsoft FoundryAnthropicSnowflake CortexGCP Vertex AIAWS BedrockReplicate API
OpenRouterNovita AI

Capabilities

CapabilityClaude Sonnet 4.5Qwen3.5-35B-A3B
VisionYesNo
MultimodalYesNo
ReasoningYesYes
JSON / Tool useYesYes
Structured outputsYesYes
Code executionNoNo
IDE integrationNoNo
Computer useNoNo
Parallel agentsNoNo

Benchmarks

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5Qwen3.5-35B-A3B
MMLU PRO86.085.3
SWE-bench Verified77.269.2
Google-Proof Q&A83.484.5
MMMU Pro68.975.1

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Model pages
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Last reviewed: 2026-07-26. Data sourced from public model cards and provider documentation.