Alibaba (Qwen) · language model
Qwen-Plus: pricing, context and benchmarks
Qwen-Plus is a language model from Alibaba (Qwen) released on February 1, 2025. It costs $0.26 per million input tokens and $0.78 per million output tokens, with a 1M-token context window. No independent score has been published for it so far.
| Price | 20/30 | |
|---|---|---|
| Context | 12/15 | |
| Features | 8/15 |
What you need to know about Qwen-Plus
Qwen-Plus was released by Alibaba (Qwen) (China) on February 1, 2025. It accepts text as input and produces text. Its context window reaches 1,000,000 tokens, larger than 77 % of the models in the registry, and it can write up to 32,768 tokens in one go.
Released more than 1 year ago, it belongs to a generation most vendors have since superseded.
Qwen-Plus pricing
On OpenRouter, Qwen-Plus costs $0.26 per million input tokens and $0.78 per million output tokens. Counting three tokens read for every token written, its average price is $0.39 per million, more expensive than 34 % of paid models (2 times cheaper than the median of $0.76).
A concrete example: a task that sends 2,000 tokens (about 1,500 words) and receives a 500-token answer costs $0.0009. At 1,000 tasks a day, budget $27 a month. The price calculator redoes this with your own volumes.
Tokens already sent and cached are billed at $0.052 per million.
Performance and benchmarks
Epoch AI does not yet publish a capabilities index for Qwen-Plus. We therefore show no made-up performance rating: only price, context and features count towards its score.
Scores published by Epoch AI on the benchmarks the site tracks:
| Benchmark | What it measures | Score | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | PhD-level science questions | 48.1 % | Jan 25, 2025 |
| OTIS Mock AIME | maths competition problems | 17.8 % | Jan 25, 2025 |
Features, privacy and local use
- It supports tool calling, so it can drive an AI agent, call APIs or MCP servers.
- It can answer in an enforced JSON format (structured outputs).
- Its knowledge stops at March 2025.
Its weights are not published: it can only be used through the Alibaba (Qwen) API or a broker such as OpenRouter, which means sending your data off your machines.
Other Alibaba (Qwen) models
| Model | Released | Avg. price | ECI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen3.8 Max Prime | Sep 23, 2026 | $6 | — |
| Qwen3.8 Omni Flash | Sep 21, 2026 | $0.23 | — |
| Qwen3.8 Max (0902) | Sep 3, 2026 | $3 | 155.1 |
| Qwen3.8 Flash | Aug 26, 2026 | $0.23 | — |
| Qwen3.8 27B | Aug 14, 2026 | $0.78 | 151.7 |
| Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B | Aug 12, 2026 | $3 | — |
| Qwen3.7 Flash | Jul 27, 2026 | $0.06 | 144.1 |
| Qwen3.7 Plus | Jun 3, 2026 | $0.56 | 147 |
Verdict
Qwen-Plus scores 67/100 on our grid, which only uses published figures.
Strengths
- Very large context (1M tokens): long documents or a whole codebase fit in one request.
- Agent-ready: tool calling and structured JSON output.
Limitations
- No independent score published: performance cannot be verified.
- Older generation, often replaced by a newer model from the same vendor.
- Text only: reads neither images nor files.
Avoid if…
- your data must not leave your servers.
Alternatives
- UnslopNemo 12B$0.4
- MiniMax-01$0.43
- GLM 5.3$0.41
- Llama 4 Maverick$0.3
- Trinity Large Thinking$0.39
- Beam 1.0 501B A23B$0.44
Comparisons and tools
Learn more
Frequently asked questions
How much does Qwen-Plus cost?
$0.26 per million input tokens and $0.78 per million output tokens on OpenRouter (checked October 25, 2026). A task with 2,000 tokens read and 500 written costs $0.0009.
How big is Qwen-Plus's context window?
1,000,000 tokens, roughly 750,000 words, with a maximum of 32,768 output tokens.
Can Qwen-Plus run locally?
No, Alibaba (Qwen) does not publish its weights: it is API-only.
Is Qwen-Plus suitable for an AI agent?
Technically yes: it supports tool calling and structured outputs. Then check its cost for your volume.
What are the alternatives to Qwen-Plus?
The closest models on price and performance are UnslopNemo 12B, MiniMax-01, and GLM 5.3.
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Neutrality. No affiliate links. No vendor pays to be reviewed, rated or ranked. Reviews are directed by François Chollet, neutral and factual, and every data point is dated and sourced. How we score