Qwen3.5-9B API pricing
Alibaba · Budget price tier · Apache 2.0 · released 2026-03. Prices in USD per 1 million tokens. Data snapshot: 2026-11-12.
A support ticket workload of 100K requests a month costs $15.20 on Qwen3.5-9B; the next cheaper model in the Budget price tier for this workload, Gemma 3 12B, does it for $15.00. The price we quote for Qwen3.5-9B has changed 3 times since 2026-08-15, most recently by -60.0% on 2026-11-12; it is now the 11th cheapest of 160 models in the Budget price tier. None of its 6 hosts undercuts the price we quote. No Arena score is published for it, so it carries no Efficiency score and cannot hold the FinOps Friendly badge.
- Input: $0.068 per 1M tokens
- Output: $0.10 per 1M tokens
- Batch API (in/out): Not published
- Prompt-cache read: $0.061 per 1M tokens
- Context window: 262K tokens
- Arena ELO: Not published
Market position
On blended price ($0.0904 per 1M tokens at 30% input, 70% output) it is cheaper than 94% of models in the Budget price tier: 11th cheapest of 160. Across every price tier it is cheaper than 97% of priced text models in the catalogue: 11th cheapest of 303. No Arena score has been published for Qwen3.5-9B, so this page does not rank it on quality and OptimNow's quality bars do not apply to it. 77 of the 160 models we list in the Budget price tier carry one. An unranked model is unmeasured, not poor: the benchmark needs votes, and a recent release has not had time to collect them.
Licence, size and capabilities
Qwen3.5-9B is open source: its weights are published under Apache 2.0, an OSI-approved licence with no field-of-use limit, so it can be self-hosted as well as bought by the token. Its published size is 9B parameters. Listed capabilities: Text, Vision, Reasoning, Agents. Filling its 262K context window once costs $0.0178 in input tokens at list price.
Pricing by host
A host is a company that runs the model and sells it by the token: the model maker, a cloud platform like Amazon Bedrock, Azure or Vertex, or an independent host. One model, several hosts, and often several prices. This model is sold by 6 different hosts. The price we quote elsewhere on this page is marked. We quote one host's rate so that models stay comparable; it is not a recommendation to buy there.
The price we quote is already the cheapest of the 6 hosts: PrimeIntellect at $0.068 input / $0.10 output per 1M tokens. The dearest, Together, charges 2.5x the cheapest.
| Host | Input $/1M | Output $/1M | Precision |
|---|---|---|---|
| PrimeIntellect (price we quote) | $0.068 | $0.10 | bf16 |
| Darkbloom | $0.08 | $0.13 | fp4 |
| SiliconFlow | $0.10 | $0.15 | fp8 |
| DeepInfra | $0.10 | $0.15 | bf16 |
| Parasail | $0.10 | $0.25 | bf16 |
| Together | $0.17 | $0.25 | not declared |
List prices as published on 2026-11-12, via OpenRouter. Negotiated rates, committed-use discounts and provisioned capacity are not shown. These hosts do not all serve the model at the same numeric precision, so the cheapest is not a like-for-like substitute for the dearest.
Monthly cost at 100K requests, by business use case
From the after-discounts figure (prompt caching on the cached input share, batch API for async workloads, only where Alibaba publishes those rates), which assumes you implement both, to the list price. One figure means no discount is published.
| Use case | Tokens (in/out) | Monthly (after discounts – list) |
|---|---|---|
| Support Ticket | 1,500 / 500 | $15 |
| Knowledge Q&A | 2,000 / 800 | $21 – $22 |
| Meeting Summary | 10,000 / 1,200 | $79 – $80 |
| Marketing Content | 2,500 / 1,800 | $35 |
| Coding Task | 3,000 / 2,000 | $39 – $40 |
| Invoice Processing | 1,500 / 600 | $16 |
| Call Summary | 2,000 / 700 | $20 – $21 |
| Agent Workflow | 6,000 / 3,000 | $68 – $71 |
Price history
Qwen3.5-9B has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $0.10 input / $0.15 output per 1M tokens. The price we quote has changed 3 times since then, 2 of them a change of quoted host rather than a repricing. The latest change, on 2026-11-12, was -60.0% on the blended price (30% input, 70% output), to $0.068 input / $0.10 output. Net of all changes, the blended price is -33.0% against 2026-08-15.
| Date | Old price (in / out) | New price (in / out) | Blended change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-11-12 | $0.17 / $0.25 | $0.068 / $0.10 | -60.0% |
| 2026-10-24 | $0.08 / $0.13 | $0.17 / $0.25 | +96.5% (quoted host changed, not a repricing) |
| 2026-10-21 | $0.10 / $0.15 | $0.08 / $0.13 | -14.8% (quoted host changed, not a repricing) |
Alternatives to Qwen3.5-9B
Qwen3.5-9B carries no Arena score, so this page cannot place it against models of comparable quality. The alternatives below are its nearest neighbours on price in the Budget price tier.
- Next cheaper model in the Budget price tier: Gemma 3 4B (Google) at $0.085 blended, 6% less.
- Next more expensive: Gemma 4 26B A4B (Google) at $0.094 blended, 4% more.
Other models from Alibaba
The 8 nearest to Qwen3.5-9B in price, of 39 other Alibaba models in the catalogue. Prices per 1M tokens, input then output.
- Qwen3.7 Flash: $0.03 / $0.13
- Qwen3.5-Flash: $0.065 / $0.26
- Qwen3 14B: $0.12 / $0.24
- Qwen3 32B: $0.08 / $0.28
- Qwen3 30B A3B Instruct 2507: $0.10 / $0.30
- Qwen3.8 Flash: $0.15 / $0.47
- Qwen3.8 Omni Flash: $0.15 / $0.47
- Qwen3 30B A3B: $0.12 / $0.50
All 40 Alibaba models and prices
Common questions about Qwen3.5-9B pricing
- How much does Qwen3.5-9B cost?
- Qwen3.5-9B costs $0.068 per 1M input tokens and $0.10 per 1M output tokens at PrimeIntellect, the host whose rate we quote. Prices as listed on 2026-11-12.
- Which host is cheapest for Qwen3.5-9B?
- The price we quote is already the cheapest of the 6 hosts: PrimeIntellect at $0.068 input / $0.10 output per 1M tokens. The dearest, Together, charges 2.5x the cheapest. Host rates as listed on 2026-11-12.
- Does Qwen3.5-9B offer batch or cached pricing?
- Yes, for prompt caching only. Cache reads cost $0.061 per 1M tokens, as listed on 2026-11-12. No batch pricing is published.
- What would Qwen3.5-9B cost per month?
- With the Support Ticket profile (1,500 input and 500 output tokens per request), 100,000 requests a month cost about $15 on Qwen3.5-9B at the list price quoted on 2026-11-12.
- Can Qwen3.5-9B be self-hosted?
- Yes. Qwen3.5-9B is open source: its weights are published under Apache 2.0, an OSI-approved licence with no field-of-use limit, so it can be self-hosted as well as bought by the token.
- Has the price of Qwen3.5-9B changed?
- Qwen3.5-9B has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $0.10 input / $0.15 output per 1M tokens. The price we quote has changed 3 times since then, 2 of them a change of quoted host rather than a repricing. The latest change, on 2026-11-12, was -60.0% on the blended price (30% input, 70% output), to $0.068 input / $0.10 output. Net of all changes, the blended price is -33.0% against 2026-08-15.
Its weights are published, which changes what you may run yourself: the cost gap between open weights and proprietary APIs.
These are list prices. Your real cost also depends on caching and batching, negotiated discounts, marketplace agreements, and the contracts you already have. OptimNow audits exactly that.
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