API cost decision in 10 seconds

Qianfan-OCR-Fast vs Qwen3.5 397B A17B

Pick Qwen3.5 397B A17B when budget and context both matter.

Page updated: 2026-05-26T10:03:26Z Data confirmed: 2026-05-26T12:43:06Z Prices normalized to USD per 1M tokens Sample workload: 1M input + 500K output

Budget verdict

Pick Qwen3.5 397B A17B when budget and context both matter.

On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Qwen3.5 397B A17B is estimated at $1.56 vs $2.08 for Qianfan-OCR-Fast, saving $0.52 (25.2% lower).

Cost-first pickQwen3.5 397B A17B

Context-first pickQwen3.5 397B A17B

Sample savings$0.5225.2%

10x traffic gap$5.25

Qwen3.5 397B A17B is cheaper on the standard workload and also has the larger context window. At 10x that traffic, the same price gap is about $5.25. Use the calculator below to replace the sample workload with your own token volume.

Cost sensitivity

Workload Sensitivity

Same prices, different token mixes.

Qwen3.5 397B A17B stays cheaper across input-heavy, balanced, and output-heavy sample workloads.

Workload shape	Token mix	Better pick	Qianfan-OCR-Fast	Qwen3.5 397B A17B
Input-heavy / RAG	5M input + 500K output	Qwen3.5 397B A17B	$4.81	$3.12
Balanced workload	1M input + 1M output	Qwen3.5 397B A17B	$3.49	$2.73
Output-heavy chatbot	1M input + 5M output	Qwen3.5 397B A17B	$14.73	$12.09

Cheaper input Qwen3.5 397B A17B $0.68 vs $0.39 / 1M

Qwen3.5 397B A17B is $0.29 cheaper per 1M input tokens (42.6% lower; 1.74x difference).

Cheaper output Qwen3.5 397B A17B $2.81 vs $2.34 / 1M

Qwen3.5 397B A17B is $0.47 cheaper per 1M output tokens (16.7% lower; 1.2x difference).

Larger context Qwen3.5 397B A17B 65.54K vs 262.14K

Qwen3.5 397B A17B has 196.61K more context (4x larger).

Sample workload Qwen3.5 397B A17B $2.08 vs $1.56

Qwen3.5 397B A17B is $0.52 cheaper on the standard workload (25.2% lower).

Estimate your workload cost

Your Workload Cost

Prices are normalized to USD per 1M tokens.

Monthly input tokens Monthly output tokens

Qianfan-OCR-Fast Calculating… Estimated API cost

Qwen3.5 397B A17B Calculating… Estimated API cost

Cheaper for this workload Calculating… Difference: calculating…

This estimate uses normalized public API pricing per 1M tokens. It is a planning aid, not a billing quote. Verify provider pricing, limits, and terms before production use.

Quick Decision

Verdict

Qwen3.5 397B A17B has the lower input price; Qwen3.5 397B A17B has the lower output price; Qwen3.5 397B A17B offers the larger context window. For the 1M input plus 500K output sample, Qwen3.5 397B A17B is cheaper for the standard workload.

For a 1M input token plus 500K output token workload, the estimated API cost is $2.08 for Qianfan-OCR-Fast and $1.56 for Qwen3.5 397B A17B.

Best Fit

Choose Qianfan-OCR-Fast when its provider, model quality, latency, or availability is more important than the numeric price/context winner.

Choose Qwen3.5 397B A17B when you care most about lower input-token price, lower output-token price, and larger context window.

Decision Notes

On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Qwen3.5 397B A17B is estimated at $1.56 vs $2.08 for Qianfan-OCR-Fast, saving $0.52 (25.2% lower).
Qwen3.5 397B A17B is $0.52 cheaper on the standard workload (25.2% lower).
Qwen3.5 397B A17B is $0.29 cheaper per 1M input tokens (42.6% lower; 1.74x difference).
Qwen3.5 397B A17B is $0.47 cheaper per 1M output tokens (16.7% lower; 1.2x difference).
Qwen3.5 397B A17B has 196.61K more context (4x larger).

Head-to-Head Specs

Feature	Qianfan-OCR-Fast (Baidu)	Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Qwen)
Input Price prompt tokens per 1M	$0.68	$0.39
Completion Price per 1M tokens	$2.81	$2.34
Sample Workload Cost 1M input + 500K output	$2.08	$1.56
Context Window	65.54K	262.14K
Release Date	2026-04-20	2026-02-16

Use-Case Decision Matrix

Use case	Better pick	Why
Budget-constrained production	Qwen3.5 397B A17B	On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Qwen3.5 397B A17B is estimated at $1.56 vs $2.08 for Qianfan-OCR-Fast, saving $0.52 (25.2% lower).
High-volume input processing	Qwen3.5 397B A17B	Lower prompt-token price matters most when prompts, retrieved passages, or documents dominate the bill.
Long responses and chatbots	Qwen3.5 397B A17B	Lower output-token price matters most when assistants generate many completion tokens.
RAG or long-document work	Qwen3.5 397B A17B	A larger context window leaves more room for retrieved passages, conversation history, or source files.

Related Alternatives

Same-provider lower-cost swaps

ERNIE 4.5 21B A3B Thinking can replace Qianfan-OCR-Fast when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.21.
ERNIE 4.5 21B A3B can replace Qianfan-OCR-Fast when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.21.
ERNIE 4.5 VL 28B A3B can replace Qianfan-OCR-Fast when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.42.
ERNIE 4.5 300B A47B can replace Qianfan-OCR-Fast when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.83.

Larger context near this budget

Llama 4 Scout offers 10M context with $0.23 sample workload cost.
Grok 4.20 offers 2M context with $2.5 sample workload cost.
Owl Alpha offers 1.05M context with $0 sample workload cost.
DeepSeek V4 Flash offers 1.05M context with $0.2 sample workload cost.

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Baidu catalog

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Qwen catalog

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Qianfan-OCR-Fast

Qianfan-OCR-Fast is a domain-specific multimodal large model purpose-built for OCR. By leveraging specialized OCR training data while preserving versatile multimodal intelligence, it provides a powerful performance upgrade over Qianfan-OCR.

Qwen3.5 397B A17B

The Qwen3.5 series 397B-A17B native vision-language model is built on a hybrid architecture that integrates a linear attention mechanism with a sparse mixture-of-experts model, achieving higher inference efficiency. It delivers...