Is Qwen3.8 27B better than Qwen3.8 Max (0902)?

On accuracy they are statistically tied: Qwen3.8 27B scored 63.8% and Qwen3.8 Max (0902) 75.0% on the same 80 questions from open datasets. Similar accuracy; Qwen3.8 27B costs less per question.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.8 27B or Qwen3.8 Max (0902)?

Qwen3.8 27B is cheaper: $0.0043 per question as billed, against $0.011. List prices: Qwen3.8 27B $0.2 in / $2.5 out, Qwen3.8 Max (0902) $2 in / $6 out per million tokens.

Which is faster, Qwen3.8 27B or Qwen3.8 Max (0902)?

Their output speed is similar: 49 and 46 tokens per second.

Which has the larger context window, Qwen3.8 27B or Qwen3.8 Max (0902)?

Both accept about the same amount of context: 1M and 1M tokens.

Head to head · tested 27 Oct 2026

Qwen3.8 27B vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902): accuracy, speed and price

Similar accuracy; Qwen3.8 27B costs less per question.

QwenQwen3.8 27B63.8% score · #34$0.0043 per question49 tok/s

QwenQwen3.8 Max (0902)75.0% score · #15$0.011 per question46 tok/s

Verdict

Built from the measurements below

Accuracy is too close to call: Qwen3.8 27B scored 63.8% and Qwen3.8 Max (0902) 75.0% on the same 80 questions, a gap within what chance alone could produce.
Qwen3.8 27B is 2.6× cheaper per question as billed ($0.0043 vs $0.011), reasoning tokens included.
Output speed is similar (49 vs 46 tokens per second).
Qwen3.8 27B starts answering sooner: 0.5 s to the first token, against 1.2 s for Qwen3.8 Max (0902).

Which should you choose?

Choose Qwen3.8 27B for the lower cost per correct answer ($0.0067 against $0.015), a quicker first token, open weights you can run yourself and more hosts to choose from on OpenRouter (21 against 1). The widest subject gap is in engineering: Qwen3.8 Max (0902) answered 9 of 15 correctly, Qwen3.8 27B 6 of 15. With so few questions per subject, treat this as a lead to test on your own prompts, not a result.

Accuracy gap -11.3 points (z = -1.54). A winner is called only when z is at least 1.96, the usual 95% threshold. Speed, latency and price need a 10% margin.

Head to head

Same questions, same prompt, same API

Measure	Qwen3.8 27B	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)	Edge
Verification scoreHigher is better	63.8%	75.0%	Too close to call
Cost per questionLower is better	$0.0043	$0.011	Qwen3.8 27B
Output speedHigher is better	49	46	Similar
Time to first tokenLower is better	0.5 s	1.2 s	Qwen3.8 27B
End-to-end response timeLower is better	10.6 s	12.2 s	Qwen3.8 27B
Tokens per questionLower is better	1,913	1,722	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Context windowHigher is better	1M	1M	Similar

Side by side

Bars are scaled to the larger of the two values. The winner on each measure is marked in bold.

Every measure

Qwen3.8 27B first, Qwen3.8 Max (0902) second

Verification scorehigher is better

Qwen3.8 27B63.8%

Qwen3.8 Max (0902)75.0%

Cost per questionlower is better

Qwen3.8 27B$0.0043

Qwen3.8 Max (0902)$0.011

Output speedhigher is better

Qwen3.8 27B49

Qwen3.8 Max (0902)46

Time to first tokenlower is better

Qwen3.8 27B0.5 s

Qwen3.8 Max (0902)1.2 s

End-to-end response timelower is better

Qwen3.8 27B10.6 s

Qwen3.8 Max (0902)12.2 s

Tokens per questionlower is better

Qwen3.8 27B1,913

Qwen3.8 Max (0902)1,722

Context windowhigher is better

Qwen3.8 27B1M

Qwen3.8 Max (0902)1M

Score vs. cost per question

Both models in color, every other model in grey

Results by subject and dataset

Questions answered correctly. Small samples: a gap of one or two questions is noise.

Subject	Questions	Qwen3.8 27B	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Science	30	21/30	24/30
Engineering	15	6/15	9/15
Medicine	11	5/11	6/11
Economics	9	8/9	8/9
Law	6	3/6	4/6
Humanities & social science	9	8/9	9/9
SuperGPQA dataset	50	28/50	32/50
MMLU-Pro dataset	30	23/30	28/30

Specifications and pricing

From OpenRouter's catalogue, plus the leaderboard's test dates

Specification	Qwen3.8 27B	Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Creator	Qwen	Qwen
Released	14 Aug 2026	3 Sept 2026
Weights	Open weights	—
Reasoning	Yes	Yes
Input	text, image, video	text, image, video
Output	text	text
Context window	1M tokens	1M tokens
Knowledge cutoff	—	—
List price in / out per 1M	$0.2 / $2.5	$2 / $6
Blended price per 1M (3:1)	$0.78	$3.00
Cheapest host	Tenstorrent · $0.06 / $0.5	Alibaba · $2 / $6
Hosts on OpenRouter	21	1
Last tested	26 Oct 2026	25 Oct 2026

Compare any two models →

Qwen3.8 27B vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902): frequently asked questions

Is Qwen3.8 27B better than Qwen3.8 Max (0902)?: On accuracy they are statistically tied: Qwen3.8 27B scored 63.8% and Qwen3.8 Max (0902) 75.0% on the same 80 questions from open datasets. Similar accuracy; Qwen3.8 27B costs less per question.
Which is cheaper, Qwen3.8 27B or Qwen3.8 Max (0902)?: Qwen3.8 27B is cheaper: $0.0043 per question as billed, against $0.011. List prices: Qwen3.8 27B $0.2 in / $2.5 out, Qwen3.8 Max (0902) $2 in / $6 out per million tokens.
Which is faster, Qwen3.8 27B or Qwen3.8 Max (0902)?: Their output speed is similar: 49 and 46 tokens per second.
Which has the larger context window, Qwen3.8 27B or Qwen3.8 Max (0902)?: Both accept about the same amount of context: 1M and 1M tokens.