Qwen3.6 Plus API pricing
Alibaba · Budget price tier · released 2026-04. Prices in USD per 1 million tokens. Data snapshot: 2026-11-12.
A support ticket workload of 100K requests a month costs $146.25 on Qwen3.6 Plus; the next cheaper model in the Budget price tier for this workload, Llama 3.1 70B Instruct, does it for $144.00. Qwen3.6 Plus has held the same list price since 2026-08-15 and is the 158th cheapest of 160 models in the Budget price tier. Only one host, Alibaba, sells it, so there is no second price to shop. It holds the FinOps Friendly badge: top-40% Arena quality, top-30% Efficiency, not among the dearest 30%, and no stability flag.
- Input: $0.325 per 1M tokens
- Output: $1.95 per 1M tokens
- Batch API (in/out): Not published
- Prompt-cache read: Not published
- Context window: 1M tokens
- Arena ELO: 1436 as of 2026-11-08
Market position
On blended price ($1.4625 per 1M tokens at 30% input, 70% output) it is cheaper than 1% of models in the Budget price tier: 158th cheapest of 160. Across every price tier it is cheaper than 48% of priced text models in the catalogue: 158th cheapest of 303. Its Arena ELO of 1436 ranks 59th of the 160 models that carry one, tied with one other, above 63% of them. With an Arena score of 1436, Qwen3.6 Plus clears OptimNow's Standard working quality threshold: Standard (Arena 1420+), used for meeting summary, invoice processing and call summary. Each threshold is a distance below the best ranked model, which scores 1530 on Arena scores as of 8 Nov 2026.
Licence, size and capabilities
No licence is recorded for Qwen3.6 Plus, so this page does not say whether it can be self-hosted. Its parameter count is not published. Listed capabilities: Text, Vision, Reasoning, Agents. Filling its 1M context window once costs $0.325 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 1 host. 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.
Alibaba is the only host with a published rate, $0.325 input / $1.95 output per 1M tokens, which is the price we quote.
| Host | Input $/1M | Output $/1M |
|---|---|---|
| Alibaba (model maker, price we quote) | $0.325 | $1.95 |
List prices as published on 2026-11-12, via OpenRouter. Negotiated rates, committed-use discounts and provisioned capacity are not shown.
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 | $146 |
| Knowledge Q&A | 2,000 / 800 | $221 |
| Meeting Summary | 10,000 / 1,200 | $559 |
| Marketing Content | 2,500 / 1,800 | $432 |
| Coding Task | 3,000 / 2,000 | $488 |
| Invoice Processing | 1,500 / 600 | $166 |
| Call Summary | 2,000 / 700 | $202 |
| Agent Workflow | 6,000 / 3,000 | $780 |
Price history
Qwen3.6 Plus has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $0.325 input / $1.95 output per 1M tokens. No list price change since tracking began on 2026-08-15. Last checked against the 2026-11-12 snapshot.
Alternatives to Qwen3.6 Plus
4 of the 4 comparable models below cost less than Qwen3.6 Plus: Gemma 4 26B A4B undercuts it by 94%, for 2 Arena points less.
- Next cheaper model in the Budget price tier: GLM 4.5V (Zhipu) at $1.44 blended, 2% less.
- Next more expensive: Morph V3 Large (morph) at $1.60 blended, 9% more.
The nearest models in the Budget price tier on Arena ELO, each with its blended price and score difference against Qwen3.6 Plus.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Alibaba): $0.15 in / $1.875 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1436 (7% cheaper, same Arena ELO)
- Gemma 4 26B A4B (Google): $0.08 in / $0.10 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1434 (94% cheaper, 2 ELO points lower)
- Hy3 (Tencent): $0.132 in / $0.528 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1439 (72% cheaper, 3 ELO points higher)
- DeepSeek V4 Flash 0423 (DeepSeek): $0.09 in / $0.18 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1432 (90% cheaper, 4 ELO points lower)
- Cheapest within 15 Arena points: Gemma 4 26B A4B (Google), 94% cheaper, 2 ELO points lower, out of 42 models in that band.
- Highest Arena ELO within 20% of this price: MiMo-V2.5-Pro (Xiaomi), 4% cheaper, 28 ELO points higher, out of 18 models in that price band.
Other models from Alibaba
The 8 nearest to Qwen3.6 Plus in price, of 39 other Alibaba models in the catalogue. Prices per 1M tokens, input then output.
- Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-02-15: $0.26 / $1.56
- Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20: $0.30 / $1.80
- Qwen3.8 27B: $0.15 / $1.875
- Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct: $0.21 / $1.90
- Qwen3.5-122B-A10B: $0.26 / $2.08
- Qwen3.5-27B: $0.26 / $2.60
- Qwen3.6 27B: $0.32 / $3.20
- Qwen3 235B A22B Thinking 2507: $0.45 / $3.50
All 40 Alibaba models and prices
Common questions about Qwen3.6 Plus pricing
- How much does Qwen3.6 Plus cost?
- Qwen3.6 Plus costs $0.325 per 1M input tokens and $1.95 per 1M output tokens. That is the model maker's own rate (Alibaba). Prices as listed on 2026-11-12.
- Which host is cheapest for Qwen3.6 Plus?
- Alibaba is the only host with a published rate, $0.325 input / $1.95 output per 1M tokens, which is the price we quote. Host rates as listed on 2026-11-12.
- Does Qwen3.6 Plus offer batch or cached pricing?
- No. Neither a batch rate nor a prompt-cache rate is published for Qwen3.6 Plus as of 2026-11-12.
- What would Qwen3.6 Plus cost per month?
- With the Support Ticket profile (1,500 input and 500 output tokens per request), 100,000 requests a month cost about $146 on Qwen3.6 Plus at the list price quoted on 2026-11-12.
- Can Qwen3.6 Plus be self-hosted?
- No licence is recorded for Qwen3.6 Plus, so this page does not say whether it can be self-hosted.
- Has the price of Qwen3.6 Plus changed?
- Qwen3.6 Plus has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $0.325 input / $1.95 output per 1M tokens. No list price change since tracking began on 2026-08-15. Last checked against the 2026-11-12 snapshot.
It exposes a thinking budget, so its output volume is what the bill turns on: what thinking models charge for output.
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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