Qwen3.8 Max vs Gemini 3.8 Flash
Qwen3.8 Max costs $2.00 / $6.00 and Gemini 3.8 Flash costs $0.75 / $3.75 per million input / output tokens. At a typical 3:1 mix, Gemini 3.8 Flash is 2.0× cheaper than Qwen3.8 Max. Gemini 3.8 Flash's price is promotional: $0.75 / $3.75 until 31 Dec 2026, then $1.50 / $7.50.
Input
$2.00
per 1M
Output
$6.00
per 1M
Cached
—
1M context
Input
$0.75
per 1M
Output
$3.75
per 1M
Cached
$0.075
1M context
Side by side
✓ marks the cheaper price, larger context window, bigger discount or higher score.
| Detail | Qwen3.8 Max | Gemini 3.8 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Price per 1M tokens | ||
| Input | $2.00 | $0.75Lowest |
| Output | $6.00 | $3.75Lowest |
| Blended (3 in : 1 out) | $3.00 | $1.50Lowest |
| Cached input | — | $0.075 |
| Batch or off-peak discount | None | 50% (batch)Largest |
| Long prompts | Same rate at any length | Same rate at any length |
| Limits and model | ||
| Context window | 1M | 1M |
| Capability score Epoch AI index | 158 | 158 |
| Arena text score 25 Sep 2026 | — | 1492 |
| Released | 3 Aug 2026 | 2 Sep 2026 |
| Open weights | No | No |
| Status | Current | Current |
| Checked | ||
| Price checked | 13 Oct 2026 Alibaba Cloud Model Studio pricing | 6 Nov 2026 Gemini API pricing |
Monthly cost on three workloads
List prices, no batch discount. The cached share applies where a model has a cache rate.
| Workload | Qwen3.8 Max | Gemini 3.8 Flash | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer chat assistant50,000 conversations a month, about 2,000 tokens in and 400 out each; 50% cachedPrice this workload in the calculator | $320 | $116Lower | $204 |
| Document Q&A (RAG)20,000 questions a month over retrieved documents, 12,000 in and 600 out; 30% cachedPrice this workload in the calculator | $552 | $176Lower | $376 |
| Coding agent400 tasks a month, 40 steps each with a growing context; 85% cachedPrice this workload in the calculator | $1,548 | $162Lower | $1,386 |
How they differ
- Gemini 3.8 Flash is cheaper on input ($0.75 vs $2).
- Gemini 3.8 Flash is cheaper on output ($3.75 vs $6), which matters most for long answers and reasoning models.
- Gemini 3.8 Flash accepts longer prompts (1M vs 1M tokens).
- Only Gemini 3.8 Flash publishes a cached-input rate.
- Only Gemini 3.8 Flash offers a batch discount for jobs that can wait.
- Both score 158 on Epoch AI’s Capabilities Index, so on general benchmarks they’re level. Gemini 3.8 Flash is 2.0× cheaper for a similar score.
Recent changes
All changes
The cheapest OpenRouter hosts repriced 6 open-weight models, mostly downwards, including gpt-oss-120b (now $0.03 / $0.15) and Qwen3.8 27B (now $0.039 / $1.25).- Google launched Gemini 3.8 Flash at $0.75 / $3.75 until 31 December, then $1.50 / $7.50.
- Qwen3.8 Flash ($0.15 / $0.47) and GLM-5.3 Flash ($0.15 / $0.50) launched.
- Google launched Gemini 3.7 Flash at $0.75 / $3.75.
- Alibaba launched Qwen3.8 Max at $2 / $6.
Related comparisons
Compare up to four- GPT-6.1 Terra vs Gemini 3.8 Flash$1.00 / $5.00 · $0.75 / $3.75
- Gemini 3.8 Flash vs GPT-6.1 Sol$0.75 / $3.75 · $2.00 / $10.00
Gemini 3.8 Flash vs Claude Haiku 5.5$0.75 / $3.75 · $0.10 / $0.50- Qwen3.8 Max vs GPT-6.1 Sol$2.00 / $6.00 · $2.00 / $10.00
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Gemini 3.8 Flash$2.00 / $10.00 · $0.75 / $3.75