Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking vs Qwen3.8 Max

    Comparison

    As of August 20, 2026, Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking is 72% cheaper per million tokens than Qwen3.8 Max. Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking is $0.18 / $2.09 per million input/output tokens versus Qwen3.8 Max at $2.00 / $6.00. Sources: https://bailian.console.aliyun.com/ and https://www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/model-studio/pricing

    Sources: Qwen pricing (https://bailian.console.aliyun.com/); Qwen pricing (https://www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/model-studio/pricing)

    Better value

    Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking

    Qwen

    $2.27blended / 1M

    Input

    $0.18

    Output

    $2.09

    262.1K ctx|Open Source
    72%
    cheaper

    Qwen3.8 Max

    Qwen

    $8.00blended / 1M

    Input

    $2.00

    Output

    $6.00

    1M ctx|Open Source
    Save $5.73 per million tokens by choosing Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking over Qwen3.8 Max.

    Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking vs Qwen3.8 Max comparison

    Token pricing, specs, and benchmarks side by side

    Metric
    Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking
    Qwen3.8 Max
    Provider
    Provider
    Qwen
    Qwen
    License
    Open Source
    Open Source
    Release Date
    2025-09-22
    2026-08-02
    Pricing (per 1M tokens)
    Input Price-91%
    $0.18
    $2.00
    Output Price-65%
    $2.09
    $6.00
    Blended (1M + 1M)
    $2.27
    $8.00
    Model Details
    Context Window
    262.1K
    1M
    Max Output Tokens
    262.1K
    N/A
    Knowledge Cutoff
    N/A
    N/A
    Throughput
    N/A
    N/A
    Benchmarks
    43.6%
    69.9%
    92.6%
    92.7%
    57.5%
    49.6%
    46.3%
    83.2%
    82.8%
    46.6%
    84.5%
    33.9%
    86.1%
    72.5%
    60.4%
    82.3%
    53%
    80.3%
    99.4%
    85.2%
    88.0%
    84.9%
    75.1%
    85.3%
    63%
    68.7%
    76.3%
    59.9%
    85.9%
    65.8%
    74.8%
    95.3%
    60.1%
    46.8%
    77.8%
    73.5%
    60.2%
    60.6%
    69.5%
    73%
    53.4%
    66.3%
    55.8%
    81.8%
    62.7%
    40.7%
    85.0%
    75.1%
    87.5%
    77.3%
    88.6%
    70.7%
    88.8%
    74.1%
    75.3%
    77.8%
    92.9%
    76.8%
    75.1%
    69%
    55.9%
    81.9%
    39.8%
    73.2%
    47.5%
    1713
    73.5%
    88%
    51.3%
    93.6%
    70.2%
    51.2%
    75.5%
    71.8%
    72.8%
    81.9%
    85.5%
    Benchmark Wins
    Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking 1|9 Qwen3.8 Max

    Verdict

    Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking vs Qwen3.8 Max: the bottom line

    Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking offers significantly lower pricing, while Qwen3.8 Max leads on benchmark performance. Your choice depends on whether cost efficiency or raw capability matters more for your use case.

    Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking vs Qwen3.8 Max FAQ

    Which is cheaper, Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking or Qwen3.8 Max?

    As of August 20, 2026, Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking is 72% cheaper on blended LLM API pricing. Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking costs $0.18 per million input tokens and $2.09 per million output tokens ($2.27 blended 1M-in + 1M-out). Qwen3.8 Max costs $2.00 / $6.00 per million tokens ($8.00 blended). Sources: https://bailian.console.aliyun.com/ and https://www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/model-studio/pricing. The cheapest LLM for your app still depends on how many output tokens you generate.

    How much does Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking vs Qwen3.8 Max cost per million tokens?

    Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking Qwen API pricing is $0.18 input and $2.09 output per million tokens via Qwen. Qwen3.8 Max Qwen API pricing is $2.00 input and $6.00 output per million tokens via Qwen. Use those four numbers, not ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro subscription prices, when you are comparing APIs.

    Which is better for coding, Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking or Qwen3.8 Max?

    Qwen3.8 Max has a published SWE-bench Verified score of 85.6%. Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking does not have that eval on this page yet.

    What is the context window for Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking vs Qwen3.8 Max?

    Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking supports a 262K token context window, while Qwen3.8 Max supports 1M tokens. Qwen3.8 Max offers a larger context window. Filling a larger window bills more input tokens, so the cheaper-per-million model can still cost more on long documents.

    Which model performs better on benchmarks, Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking or Qwen3.8 Max?

    Qwen3.8 Max leads on 9 of 10 shared benchmarks versus Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking's 1 wins. Check the comparison table for GPQA Diamond, SWE-bench, MMLU, HLE, and the other evals we track. Token price and benchmark score together are the usual LLM comparison, not either number alone.

    Is Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking or Qwen3.8 Max better for production use?

    Both Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking and Qwen3.8 Max are production API models. For cost-sensitive production traffic, Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking has better economics on the blended 1M-in + 1M-out scale. For maximum capability, weight the benchmark table for your domain. Many production stacks route cheap models for drafts and a frontier model for the hard turn, which is usually cheaper than sending everything to the expensive API.

    Can I switch between Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking and Qwen3.8 Max in my app?

    Yes. Call Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking through Qwen and Qwen3.8 Max through Qwen with separate API keys, or through a gateway that already wraps both. Keep prompts in tokens, not characters, when you estimate the invoice. AnotherWrapper templates can swap providers without rewriting auth and billing.

    How accurate is this Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking vs Qwen3.8 Max pricing data?

    List rates are the latest published Qwen API pricing and Qwen API pricing, quoted per million tokens. Official rate sheets: https://bailian.console.aliyun.com/ and https://www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/model-studio/pricing. Prompt caching, batch APIs, and committed-use discounts can change the invoice. Benchmark scores are from official publications and independent evals, updated as new numbers land.

    What is the output token limit for Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking and Qwen3.8 Max?

    Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking supports up to 262K output tokens per request, while Qwen3.8 Max supports up to an unspecified number of output tokens. Output tokens are usually the expensive half of API pricing, so a higher max output cap is a capability, not a discount.

    Which model has better throughput, Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking or Qwen3.8 Max?

    Neither Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking nor Qwen3.8 Max has published throughput data on this page yet. Throughput (tokens per second) and time-to-first-token are why two models with the same per-million-token price can still feel different in chat and agents.

    How do I switch the models in this Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking vs Qwen3.8 Max comparison?

    Use the model pickers at the top of this LLM comparison. Search any model in the index and the URL updates. Open Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking or Qwen3.8 Max from the sidebar for the single-model API pricing page, or go back to the LLM pricing table to sort by cheapest blended cost.

    Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking vs Qwen3.8 Max pricing

    This comparison covers API pricing, context window, throughput, and benchmark scores. Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking costs $0.18/M input and $2.09/M output. Qwen3.8 Max costs $2.00/M input and $6.00/M output.

    Rank both on the LLM leaderboard, SWE-bench, and Humanity's Last Exam.

    The index

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