OpenAI: GPT-4o (2024-05-13) vs Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct
Head-to-head API pricing and cost comparison between OpenAI’s OpenAI: GPT-4o (2024-05-13) and Qwen’s Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct. Prices auto-refresh daily from OpenRouter.
Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct is 96% cheaper for input tokens; Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct also wins on output tokens.
Side-by-side comparison
| Spec | OpenAI: GPT-4o (2024-05-13) | Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Input price (per 1M) | $5.00 | $0.20 |
| Cached input (per 1M) | — | $0.11 |
| Output price (per 1M) | $15.00 | $0.88 |
| Batch input (per 1M) | $2.50 | — |
| Batch output (per 1M) | $7.50 | — |
| Reasoning price (per 1M) | — | — |
| Context window | 128K | 262K |
| Vision support | Yes | Yes |
| Caching support | No | Yes |
| Batch API | Yes | No |
| Reasoning capability | No | No |
Monthly cost at volume
Estimated monthly API spend at common production traffic levels (input/output tokens per request shown).
| Volume | OpenAI: GPT-4o (2024-05-13) | Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
1K req/day 500in / 200out tokens | $165.00 | $8.28 | $156.72 Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct wins |
10K req/day 1500in / 500out tokens | $4,500 | $222.00 | $4,278 Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct wins |
100K req/day 3000in / 800out tokens | $81,000 | $3,912 | $77,088 Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct wins |
1M req/day 8000in / 2000out tokens | $2,100,000 | $100,800 | $1,999,200 Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct wins |
Adjust input/output token counts, request volume, batch & cached pricing.
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Frequently asked questions
Which is cheaper, OpenAI: GPT-4o (2024-05-13) or Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct?
For input tokens, Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct is roughly 96% cheaper at $0.20/1M vs $5.00/1M. For output tokens, Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct wins at $0.88/1M. Real-world cost depends on your input/output ratio — use the calculator to model your actual workload.
What’s the context window difference?
OpenAI: GPT-4o (2024-05-13) has a context window of 128K tokens. Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct offers 262K 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 OpenAI: GPT-4o (2024-05-13) or Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct?
Choose OpenAI: GPT-4o (2024-05-13) if you’re already on the OpenAI stack, want broad ecosystem support, or prefer its feature set. Choose Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct 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 29, 2026.