Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct vs Google: Gemini 2.5 Pro
Head-to-head API pricing and cost comparison between Qwen’s Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct and Google’s Google: Gemini 2.5 Pro. Prices auto-refresh daily from OpenRouter.
Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct is 84% cheaper for input tokens; Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct also wins on output tokens.
Side-by-side comparison
| Spec | Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct | Google: Gemini 2.5 Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Input price (per 1M) | $0.20 | $1.25 |
| Cached input (per 1M) | $0.11 | $0.13 |
| Output price (per 1M) | $0.88 | $10.00 |
| Batch input (per 1M) | — | — |
| Batch output (per 1M) | — | — |
| Reasoning price (per 1M) | — | $10.00 |
| Context window | 262K | 1049K |
| Vision support | Yes | Yes |
| Caching support | Yes | Yes |
| 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 | Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct | Google: Gemini 2.5 Pro | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
1K req/day 500in / 200out tokens | $8.28 | $78.75 | $70.47 Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct wins |
10K req/day 1500in / 500out tokens | $222.00 | $2,063 | $1,841 Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct wins |
100K req/day 3000in / 800out tokens | $3,912 | $35,250 | $31,338 Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct wins |
1M req/day 8000in / 2000out tokens | $100,800 | $900,000 | $799,200 Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct wins |
Adjust input/output token counts, request volume, batch & cached pricing.
Related comparisons
- Anthropic: Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B InstructCompare pricing →
- Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.7 vs Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B InstructCompare pricing →
- Anthropic: Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B InstructCompare pricing →
- Cohere: Command R (08-2024) vs Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B InstructCompare pricing →
Frequently asked questions
Which is cheaper, Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct or Google: Gemini 2.5 Pro?
For input tokens, Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct is roughly 84% cheaper at $0.20/1M vs $1.25/1M. 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?
Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct has a context window of 262K tokens. Google: Gemini 2.5 Pro offers 1049K 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 Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct or Google: Gemini 2.5 Pro?
Choose Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct if you’re already on the Qwen stack, want broad ecosystem support, or prefer its lower input price. Choose Google: Gemini 2.5 Pro for Google’s ecosystem, native vision input, or its differentiated capabilities. 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: Apr 21, 2026.