DeepSeek: R1 Distill Llama 70B vs Qwen: Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking
Head-to-head API pricing and cost comparison between DeepSeek’s DeepSeek: R1 Distill Llama 70B and Qwen’s Qwen: Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking. Prices auto-refresh daily from OpenRouter.
Qwen: Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking is 83% cheaper for input tokens; DeepSeek: R1 Distill Llama 70B wins on output tokens at $0.80/1M.
Side-by-side comparison
| Spec | DeepSeek: R1 Distill Llama 70B | Qwen: Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking |
|---|---|---|
| Input price (per 1M) | $0.70 | $0.12 |
| Cached input (per 1M) | — | — |
| Output price (per 1M) | $0.80 | $1.36 |
| Batch input (per 1M) | — | — |
| Batch output (per 1M) | — | — |
| Reasoning price (per 1M) | — | — |
| Context window | 131K | 256K |
| Vision support | No | Yes |
| Caching support | No | No |
| Batch API | No | No |
| Reasoning capability | No | Yes |
Monthly cost at volume
Estimated monthly API spend at common production traffic levels (input/output tokens per request shown).
| Volume | DeepSeek: R1 Distill Llama 70B | Qwen: Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
1K req/day 500in / 200out tokens | $15.30 | $9.95 | $5.36 Qwen: Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking wins |
10K req/day 1500in / 500out tokens | $435.00 | $257.40 | $177.60 Qwen: Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking wins |
100K req/day 3000in / 800out tokens | $8,220 | $4,329 | $3,891 Qwen: Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking wins |
1M req/day 8000in / 2000out tokens | $216,000 | $109,980 | $106,020 Qwen: Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking wins |
Adjust input/output token counts, request volume, batch & cached pricing.
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Frequently asked questions
Which is cheaper, DeepSeek: R1 Distill Llama 70B or Qwen: Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking?
For input tokens, Qwen: Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking is roughly 83% cheaper at $0.12/1M vs $0.70/1M. For output tokens, DeepSeek: R1 Distill Llama 70B wins at $0.80/1M. Real-world cost depends on your input/output ratio — use the calculator to model your actual workload.
What’s the context window difference?
DeepSeek: R1 Distill Llama 70B has a context window of 131K tokens. Qwen: Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking offers 256K tokens. Larger context windows are valuable for long documents, RAG pipelines, and multi-turn conversations — but they come with higher input-token bills if you fill them every request.
Should I use DeepSeek: R1 Distill Llama 70B or Qwen: Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking?
Choose DeepSeek: R1 Distill Llama 70B if you’re already on the DeepSeek stack, want broad ecosystem support, or prefer its lower output price. Choose Qwen: Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking for Qwen’s ecosystem, native vision input, or its cheaper input tokens. Run a small benchmark on your own prompts before committing — price is only one axis.
How are these prices kept current?
Prices are pulled directly from OpenRouter’s public models API once every 24 hours via a Convex cron job, then normalized to per-1M-token figures. Last refresh: May 28, 2026.