Qwen2.5 72B Instruct vs QwQ-32B-Preview

    Comparison

    As of August 20, 2026, Qwen2.5 72B Instruct and QwQ-32B-Preview have the same blended API cost at $0.75 per 1 million input plus 1 million output tokens. Qwen2.5 72B Instruct is $0.35 / $0.40 per million tokens versus QwQ-32B-Preview at $0.15 / $0.60. Source: https://bailian.console.aliyun.com/

    Source: Qwen pricing (https://bailian.console.aliyun.com/)

    Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

    Qwen

    $0.75blended / 1M

    Input

    $0.35

    Output

    $0.40

    131.1K ctx|Open Source
    vs

    QwQ-32B-Preview

    Qwen

    $0.75blended / 1M

    Input

    $0.15

    Output

    $0.60

    32.8K ctx|Open Source

    Qwen2.5 72B Instruct vs QwQ-32B-Preview comparison

    Token pricing, specs, and benchmarks side by side

    Metric
    Qwen2.5 72B Instruct
    QwQ-32B-Preview
    Provider
    Provider
    Qwen
    Qwen
    License
    Open Source
    Open Source
    Release Date
    2024-09-19
    2024-11-28
    Pricing (per 1M tokens)
    Input Price+133%
    $0.35
    $0.15
    Output Price-33%
    $0.40
    $0.60
    Blended (1M + 1M)
    $0.75
    $0.75
    Model Details
    Context Window
    131.1K
    32.8K
    Max Output Tokens
    8.2K
    32.8K
    Knowledge Cutoff
    2024-09-24
    2024-11-28
    Throughput
    10 tok/s
    76.04 tok/s
    Benchmarks
    49%
    65.2%
    49.1%
    84.1%
    8.1%
    50%
    90.6%
    84.2%
    86.6%
    83.1%
    81.6%
    81.2%
    95.8%
    52.3%
    40.3%
    88.2%
    71.1%
    86.8%
    93.5%
    75.1%
    Benchmark Wins
    Qwen2.5 72B Instruct 2|1 QwQ-32B-Preview

    Verdict

    Qwen2.5 72B Instruct vs QwQ-32B-Preview: the bottom line

    Qwen2.5 72B Instruct offers both lower pricing and stronger benchmark performance across the board, making it the clear value leader in this comparison.

    Qwen2.5 72B Instruct vs QwQ-32B-Preview FAQ

    Which is cheaper, Qwen2.5 72B Instruct or QwQ-32B-Preview?

    As of August 20, 2026, Qwen2.5 72B Instruct is 0% cheaper on blended LLM API pricing. Qwen2.5 72B Instruct costs $0.35 per million input tokens and $0.40 per million output tokens ($0.75 blended 1M-in + 1M-out). QwQ-32B-Preview costs $0.15 / $0.60 per million tokens ($0.75 blended). Sources: https://bailian.console.aliyun.com/ and https://bailian.console.aliyun.com/. The cheapest LLM for your app still depends on how many output tokens you generate.

    How much does Qwen2.5 72B Instruct vs QwQ-32B-Preview cost per million tokens?

    Qwen2.5 72B Instruct Qwen API pricing is $0.35 input and $0.40 output per million tokens via Qwen. QwQ-32B-Preview Qwen API pricing is $0.15 input and $0.60 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, Qwen2.5 72B Instruct or QwQ-32B-Preview?

    Qwen2.5 72B Instruct leads on LiveCodeBench: Qwen2.5 72B Instruct at 55.5% vs QwQ-32B-Preview at 50%. SWE-bench measures real GitHub fixes; LiveCodeBench measures contest programming.

    What is the context window for Qwen2.5 72B Instruct vs QwQ-32B-Preview?

    Qwen2.5 72B Instruct supports a 131K token context window, while QwQ-32B-Preview supports 33K tokens. Qwen2.5 72B Instruct 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, Qwen2.5 72B Instruct or QwQ-32B-Preview?

    Qwen2.5 72B Instruct leads on 2 of 3 shared benchmarks versus QwQ-32B-Preview'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 Qwen2.5 72B Instruct or QwQ-32B-Preview better for production use?

    Both Qwen2.5 72B Instruct and QwQ-32B-Preview are production API models. For cost-sensitive production traffic, Qwen2.5 72B Instruct 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 Qwen2.5 72B Instruct and QwQ-32B-Preview in my app?

    Yes. Call Qwen2.5 72B Instruct through Qwen and QwQ-32B-Preview 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 Qwen2.5 72B Instruct vs QwQ-32B-Preview 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://bailian.console.aliyun.com/. 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 Qwen2.5 72B Instruct and QwQ-32B-Preview?

    Qwen2.5 72B Instruct supports up to 8K output tokens per request, while QwQ-32B-Preview supports up to 33K 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, Qwen2.5 72B Instruct or QwQ-32B-Preview?

    Qwen2.5 72B Instruct runs at approximately 10 tokens/second while QwQ-32B-Preview runs at 76.04 tokens/second. QwQ-32B-Preview is faster in raw throughput. 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 Qwen2.5 72B Instruct vs QwQ-32B-Preview comparison?

    Use the model pickers at the top of this LLM comparison. Search any model in the index and the URL updates. Open Qwen2.5 72B Instruct or QwQ-32B-Preview from the sidebar for the single-model API pricing page, or go back to the LLM pricing table to sort by cheapest blended cost.

    Qwen2.5 72B Instruct vs QwQ-32B-Preview pricing

    This comparison covers API pricing, context window, throughput, and benchmark scores. Qwen2.5 72B Instruct costs $0.35/M input and $0.40/M output. QwQ-32B-Preview costs $0.15/M input and $0.60/M output.

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

    The index

    All Large Language Models

    280 models across 33 providers. Search or jump to a lab — every model page stays linked here.

    Baidu

    1 models

    Inception

    1 models

    inclusionAI

    1 models

    LG AI Research

    1 models

    Nous Research

    1 models

    Sakana AI

    1 models

    StepFun

    1 models

    Tencent

    1 models

    Thinking Machines

    1 models

    Unisound

    1 models

    Upstage

    1 models

    Next step

    You found the model. Now ship the product.

    Auth, billing, and the API layer are already decided. Fork 8 finished AI apps, or have us build the first version with you.