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Claude Sonnet 4 vs Qwen2.5 Instruct 72B

Anthropic · released

Wins 5 of 5 areas

Coding · Reasoning · Facts · Long documents · Following instructions

Alibaba · released

Wins 0 of 5 areas

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Claude Sonnet 4 is the stronger all-rounder.Qwen2.5 Instruct 72B is cheaper.

Scores updated · 31 tests both models report · How we compare

Where each one wins

Tests won in each of the five areas where both have results. Each piece is one test, so a longer bar means more evidence; grey means the two scored within a point of each other.

Long documents and following instructions rest on a single test each.

What it costs

Prices per million tokens, roughly 750,000 words. The bars show the cost of a million tokens read plus a million written.

Claude Sonnet 4$3.00 to read · $15.00 to write$18Price from anthropic
Qwen2.5 Instruct 72B$0.47 to read · $0.49 to write$0.97Price from Artificial Analysis

Qwen2.5 Instruct 72B costs 95% less for the same work.

The biggest differences

The tests each model wins by the widest margin, up to three each. Scores are out of 100.

Where Claude Sonnet 4 pulls ahead

  • Avoids making up answers it doesn't knowAA-Omniscience · Non-hallucination+56.4points aheadClaude Sonnet 470.9Qwen2.5 Instruct 72B14.5
  • Reasons across sets of long documentsAA-LCR+50.3points aheadClaude Sonnet 470.3Qwen2.5 Instruct 72B20
  • Fixes real GitHub issues in Python projectsSWE-bench Verified+48.9points aheadClaude Sonnet 472.7Qwen2.5 Instruct 72B23.8

Where Qwen2.5 Instruct 72B pulls ahead

No clear win on a test scored out of 100.

Every test, side by side

All 31 tests both models report. The winning score is in its model's colour; marks a score checked independently.

CodingClaude Sonnet 4

Full coding ranking

ReasoningClaude Sonnet 4

Full reasoning ranking

FactsClaude Sonnet 4

Full facts ranking

Long documentsClaude Sonnet 4
  • AA-LCRClaude Sonnet 4 by 50.370.320+50.3

Full long documents ranking

Following instructionsClaude Sonnet 4
  • IFBenchClaude Sonnet 4 by 17.854.736.9+17.8

Full following instructions ranking

Other results21 tests, not counted

Tests outside the eight areas. They are not counted above: several are summary scores built from other tests, or the same test under another name.

Questions people ask

Which is better, Claude Sonnet 4 or Qwen2.5 Instruct 72B?

Claude Sonnet 4 wins all five areas where both have results: coding, reasoning, facts, long documents and following instructions. Qwen2.5 Instruct 72B wins none, but costs 95% less.

Which is better for coding?

Claude Sonnet 4. It wins 3 of the 3 coding tests both models report; Qwen2.5 Instruct 72B wins none.

Which is cheaper?

Claude Sonnet 4 costs $3.00 per million input tokens and $15.00 per million output tokens; Qwen2.5 Instruct 72B costs $0.47 and $0.49. That makes Qwen2.5 Instruct 72B about 95% cheaper for the same work.

How do you compare the two?

We use the 31 benchmark tests both models have published scores on. The verdict counts the 10 tests in the eight capability areas, and a gap under one point (ten on rating-style scales) counts as a tie. The other 21 are listed but not counted, because several are summary scores or repeat a test. Each score is the one shown on the model's own page.