Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct is $2.3 cheaper per 1M input tokens (92% lower; 12.5x difference).
API cost decision in 10 seconds
GPT-4o vs Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct
Pick Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct when budget and context both matter.
Page updated:
Data confirmed:
Prices normalized to USD per 1M tokens
Sample workload: 1M input + 500K output
Budget verdict
Pick Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct when budget and context both matter.
On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct is estimated at $0.64 vs $7.5 for GPT-4o, saving $6.86 (91.5% lower).
Cost-first pickQwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct
Context-first pickQwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct
Sample savings$6.8691.5%
10x traffic gap$68.6
Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct is cheaper on the standard workload and also has the larger context window. At 10x that traffic, the same price gap is about $68.6. Use the calculator below to replace the sample workload with your own token volume.
Cost sensitivity
Workload Sensitivity
Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct stays cheaper across input-heavy, balanced, and output-heavy sample workloads.
| Workload shape | Token mix | Better pick | GPT-4o | Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Input-heavy / RAG | 5M input + 500K output | Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct | $17.5 | $1.44 |
| Balanced workload | 1M input + 1M output | Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct | $12.5 | $1.08 |
| Output-heavy chatbot | 1M input + 5M output | Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct | $52.5 | $4.6 |
Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct is $9.12 cheaper per 1M output tokens (91.2% lower; 11.4x difference).
Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct has 134.14K more context (2.05x larger).
Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct is $6.86 cheaper on the standard workload (91.5% lower).
Estimate your workload cost
Your Workload Cost
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
Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct has the lower input price; Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct has the lower output price; Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct offers the larger context window. For the 1M input plus 500K output sample, Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct is cheaper for the standard workload.
For a 1M input token plus 500K output token workload, the estimated API cost is $7.5 for GPT-4o and $0.64 for Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct.
Choose GPT-4o when its provider, model quality, latency, or availability is more important than the numeric price/context winner.
Choose Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct when you care most about lower input-token price, lower output-token price, and larger context window.
- On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct is estimated at $0.64 vs $7.5 for GPT-4o, saving $6.86 (91.5% lower).
- Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct is $6.86 cheaper on the standard workload (91.5% lower).
- Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct is $2.3 cheaper per 1M input tokens (92% lower; 12.5x difference).
- Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct is $9.12 cheaper per 1M output tokens (91.2% lower; 11.4x difference).
- Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct has 134.14K more context (2.05x larger).
| Feature | GPT-4o (OpenAI) | Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct (Qwen) |
|---|---|---|
| Input Price prompt tokens per 1M | $2.5 | $0.2 |
| Completion Price per 1M tokens | $10 | $0.88 |
| Sample Workload Cost 1M input + 500K output | $7.5 | $0.64 |
| Context Window | 128K | 262.14K |
| Release Date | ||
| Popularity | #101 | #103 |
Use-Case Decision Matrix
| Use case | Better pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Budget-constrained production | Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct | On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct is estimated at $0.64 vs $7.5 for GPT-4o, saving $6.86 (91.5% lower). |
| High-volume input processing | Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct | Lower prompt-token price matters most when prompts, retrieved passages, or documents dominate the bill. |
| Long responses and chatbots | Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct | Lower output-token price matters most when assistants generate many completion tokens. |
| RAG or long-document work | Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct | A larger context window leaves more room for retrieved passages, conversation history, or source files. |
Related Alternatives
- gpt-oss-120b (free) can replace GPT-4o when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.
- gpt-oss-20b (free) can replace GPT-4o when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.
- gpt-oss-20b can replace GPT-4o when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.1.
- gpt-oss-120b can replace GPT-4o when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.13.
- Llama 4 Scout offers 10M context with $0.23 sample workload cost.
- Grok 4.20 offers 2M context with $2.5 sample workload cost.
- Grok 4.20 Multi-Agent offers 2M context with $5 sample workload cost.
- Owl Alpha offers 1.05M context with $0 sample workload cost.
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Open Qwen modelsGPT-4o ("o" for "omni") is OpenAI's latest AI model, supporting both text and image inputs with text outputs. It maintains the intelligence level of [GPT-4 Turbo](/models/openai/gpt-4-turbo) while being twice as...
Qwen3-VL-235B-A22B Instruct is an open-weight multimodal model that unifies strong text generation with visual understanding across images and video. The Instruct model targets general vision-language use (VQA, document parsing, chart/table...