Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct API pricing
Alibaba · Budget price tier · Apache 2.0 · released 2025-09. Prices in USD per 1 million tokens. Data snapshot: 2026-10-22.
Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct has held the same list price since 2026-10-18 and is the 159th cheapest of 164 models in the Budget price tier. Buying from DeepInfra rather than at the price we quote lowers the token price by about 51%, for a quantized fp8 build. It is rated a stable release but does not meet all four criteria of the FinOps Friendly badge.
- Input: $0.21 per 1M tokens
- Output: $1.90 per 1M tokens
- Batch API (in/out): Not published
- Prompt-cache read: $0.10 per 1M tokens
- Context window: 262K tokens
- Arena ELO: 1413 as of 2026-10-08
Available on
AWS Bedrock regions: ap-northeast-1, eu-west-1, us-east-1, us-east-2, us-west-2
Market position
On blended price ($1.393 per 1M tokens at 30% input, 70% output) it is cheaper than 3% of models in the Budget price tier: 159th cheapest of 164. Across every price tier it is cheaper than 49% of priced text models in the catalogue: 159th cheapest of 308. Its Arena ELO of 1413 ranks 92nd of the 156 models that carry one, above 41% of them. With an Arena score of 1413, Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct sits below OptimNow's lowest working quality threshold, Standard (Arena 1415+), so the quality-bar method would not shortlist it for any of the 8 use cases the table prices. It is 2 points under the Standard bar (Arena 1415+), within the benchmark's 20-point noise. Each threshold is a distance below the best ranked model, which scores 1525 on Arena scores as of 8 Oct 2026.
Licence, size and capabilities
Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct 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 235B parameters. Listed capabilities: Text, Vision, Agents. Filling its 262K context window once costs $0.055 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 3 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.
Cheapest host: DeepInfra at $0.20 input / $0.88 output per 1M tokens, 51% below the price we quote on the blended price (30% input, 70% output). It serves a quantized fp8 build, which is not the same product as the full-precision model. The dearest, Parasail, charges 2.1x the cheapest.
| Host | Input $/1M | Output $/1M | Precision |
|---|---|---|---|
| DeepInfra | $0.20 | $0.88 | fp8 |
| Venice (price we quote) | $0.21 | $1.90 | fp8 |
| Parasail (price we quote) | $0.21 | $1.90 | fp8 |
List prices as published on 2026-10-22, 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 | $117 – $127 |
| Knowledge Q&A | 2,000 / 800 | $179 – $194 |
| Meeting Summary | 10,000 / 1,200 | $427 – $438 |
| Marketing Content | 2,500 / 1,800 | $389 – $395 |
| Coding Task | 3,000 / 2,000 | $426 – $443 |
| Invoice Processing | 1,500 / 600 | $141 – $146 |
| Call Summary | 2,000 / 700 | $173 – $175 |
| Agent Workflow | 6,000 / 3,000 | $650 – $696 |
Price history
Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct entered our daily price archive on 2026-10-18; tracking began on 2026-08-15. It listed at $0.21 input / $1.90 output per 1M tokens that day. No list price change since 2026-10-18. Last checked against the 2026-10-22 snapshot.
Alternatives to Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct
- Next cheaper model in the Budget price tier: Aion-2.0 (aion-labs) at $1.36 blended, 2% less.
- Next more expensive: GLM 4.5V (Zhipu) at $1.44 blended, 3% more.
The nearest models in the Budget price tier on Arena ELO, each with its blended price and score difference against Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct.
- Mistral Large 3 2512 (Mistral): $0.50 in / $1.50 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1414 (14% cheaper, 1 ELO point higher)
- MiniMax M2.7 (MiniMax): $0.30 in / $1.20 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1415 (33% cheaper, 2 ELO points higher)
- DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus (DeepSeek): $0.27 in / $1.00 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1415 (44% cheaper, 2 ELO points higher)
- DeepSeek V3.1 (DeepSeek): $0.25 in / $0.95 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1417 (47% cheaper, 4 ELO points higher)
- Cheapest within 15 Arena points: DeepSeek V3.2 Exp (DeepSeek), 74% cheaper, 8 ELO points higher, out of 24 models in that band.
- Highest Arena ELO within 20% of this price: DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 (DeepSeek), 14% more expensive, 52 ELO points higher, out of 10 models in that price band.
Other models from Alibaba
The 8 nearest to Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct in price, of 41 other Alibaba models in the catalogue. Prices per 1M tokens, input then output.
- Qwen3.8 27B: $0.04 / $1.35
- Qwen3.7 Plus: $0.32 / $1.28
- Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-02-15: $0.26 / $1.56
- Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20: $0.30 / $1.80
- Qwen3.6 Plus: $0.325 / $1.95
- Qwen3.6 27B: $0.25 / $2.00
- Qwen3.5-27B: $0.27 / $2.16
- Qwen3.5-122B-A10B: $0.40 / $3.20
All 42 Alibaba models and prices
Common questions about Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct pricing
- How much does Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct cost?
- Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct costs $0.21 per 1M input tokens and $1.90 per 1M output tokens at Venice, the host whose rate we quote. Venice serves a quantized fp8 build, which is not the same product as the full-precision model. Prices as listed on 2026-10-22.
- Which host is cheapest for Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct?
- Cheapest host: DeepInfra at $0.20 input / $0.88 output per 1M tokens, 51% below the price we quote on the blended price (30% input, 70% output). It serves a quantized fp8 build, which is not the same product as the full-precision model. The dearest, Parasail, charges 2.1x the cheapest. Host rates as listed on 2026-10-22.
- Does Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct offer batch or cached pricing?
- Yes, for prompt caching only. Cache reads cost $0.10 per 1M tokens, as listed on 2026-10-22. No batch pricing is published.
- What would Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct cost per month?
- With the Support Ticket profile (1,500 input and 500 output tokens per request), 100,000 requests a month cost about $127 on Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct at the list price quoted on 2026-10-22.
- Can Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct be self-hosted?
- Yes. Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct 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 VL 235B A22B Instruct changed?
- Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct entered our daily price archive on 2026-10-18; tracking began on 2026-08-15. It listed at $0.21 input / $1.90 output per 1M tokens that day. No list price change since 2026-10-18. Last checked against the 2026-10-22 snapshot.
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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