gpt-oss-120b (free) is free for input tokens while Qwen3.6 35B A3B costs $0.15 per 1M tokens.
API cost decision in 10 seconds
gpt-oss-120b (free) vs Qwen3.6 35B A3B
Pick gpt-oss-120b (free) for lower cost; pick Qwen3.6 35B A3B only if the larger context window matters more.
Page updated:
Data confirmed:
Prices normalized to USD per 1M tokens
Sample workload: 1M input + 500K output
Budget verdict
Pick gpt-oss-120b (free) for lower cost; pick Qwen3.6 35B A3B only if the larger context window matters more.
On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, gpt-oss-120b (free) is estimated at $0 vs $0.65 for Qwen3.6 35B A3B, saving $0.65 (100% lower).
Cost-first pickgpt-oss-120b (free)
Context-first pickQwen3.6 35B A3B
Sample savings$0.65100%
10x traffic gap$6.5
Qwen3.6 35B A3B has more context, but gpt-oss-120b (free) saves $0.65 on the standard workload. At 10x that traffic, the same price gap is about $6.5. Use the calculator below to replace the sample workload with your own token volume.
Cost sensitivity
Workload Sensitivity
gpt-oss-120b (free) stays cheaper across input-heavy, balanced, and output-heavy sample workloads.
| Workload shape | Token mix | Better pick | gpt-oss-120b (free) | Qwen3.6 35B A3B |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Input-heavy / RAG | 5M input + 500K output | gpt-oss-120b (free) | $0 | $1.25 |
| Balanced workload | 1M input + 1M output | gpt-oss-120b (free) | $0 | $1.15 |
| Output-heavy chatbot | 1M input + 5M output | gpt-oss-120b (free) | $0 | $5.15 |
gpt-oss-120b (free) is free for output tokens while Qwen3.6 35B A3B costs $1 per 1M tokens.
Qwen3.6 35B A3B has 131.07K more context (2x larger).
gpt-oss-120b (free) is free for the standard workload while the other model is estimated at $0.65.
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
gpt-oss-120b (free) has the lower input price; gpt-oss-120b (free) has the lower output price; Qwen3.6 35B A3B offers the larger context window. For the 1M input plus 500K output sample, gpt-oss-120b (free) is cheaper for the standard workload.
For a 1M input token plus 500K output token workload, the estimated API cost is $0 for gpt-oss-120b (free) and $0.65 for Qwen3.6 35B A3B.
Choose gpt-oss-120b (free) when you care most about lower input-token price, and lower output-token price.
Choose Qwen3.6 35B A3B when you care most about larger context window.
- On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, gpt-oss-120b (free) is estimated at $0 vs $0.65 for Qwen3.6 35B A3B, saving $0.65 (100% lower).
- gpt-oss-120b (free) is free for the standard workload while the other model is estimated at $0.65.
- gpt-oss-120b (free) is free for input tokens while Qwen3.6 35B A3B costs $0.15 per 1M tokens.
- gpt-oss-120b (free) is free for output tokens while Qwen3.6 35B A3B costs $1 per 1M tokens.
- Qwen3.6 35B A3B has 131.07K more context (2x larger).
| Feature | gpt-oss-120b (free) (OpenAI) | Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Qwen) |
|---|---|---|
| Input Price prompt tokens per 1M | $0 | $0.15 |
| Completion Price per 1M tokens | $0 | $1 |
| Sample Workload Cost 1M input + 500K output | $0 | $0.65 |
| Context Window | 131.07K | 262.14K |
| Release Date | ||
| Popularity | #26 | #76 |
Use-Case Decision Matrix
| Use case | Better pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Budget-constrained production | gpt-oss-120b (free) | On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, gpt-oss-120b (free) is estimated at $0 vs $0.65 for Qwen3.6 35B A3B, saving $0.65 (100% lower). |
| High-volume input processing | gpt-oss-120b (free) | Lower prompt-token price matters most when prompts, retrieved passages, or documents dominate the bill. |
| Long responses and chatbots | gpt-oss-120b (free) | Lower output-token price matters most when assistants generate many completion tokens. |
| RAG or long-document work | Qwen3.6 35B A3B | A larger context window leaves more room for retrieved passages, conversation history, or source files. |
Related Alternatives
- Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct (free) can replace Qwen3.6 35B A3B when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.
- Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B (free) can replace Qwen3.6 35B A3B when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct can replace Qwen3.6 35B A3B when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.09.
- Qwen3.5-9B can replace Qwen3.6 35B A3B when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.11.
- Llama 4 Scout offers 10M context with $0.23 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.
- Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite offers 1.05M context with $0.3 sample workload cost.
- DeepSeek V4 Flash · DeepSeek · #1
- Hy3 preview · Tencent · #2
- Claude Opus 4.7 · Anthropic · #3
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 · Anthropic · #4
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Open Qwen modelsgpt-oss-120b is an open-weight, 117B-parameter Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) language model from OpenAI designed for high-reasoning, agentic, and general-purpose production use cases. It activates 5.1B parameters per forward pass and is optimized...
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B is an open-weight multimodal model from Alibaba Cloud with 35 billion total parameters and 3 billion active parameters per token. It uses a hybrid sparse mixture-of-experts architecture combining Gated...