Qwen3.8-Max vs GPT-5.6 Sol
Side-by-side comparison of API pricing, specs, benchmarks, and capabilities
| Specification |
by Alibaba
|
by OpenAI
|
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Status | Current flagship | Current flagship |
| Released | Aug 3, 2026 | Jul 9, 2026 |
| Pricing per million tokens | ||
| Input | $2.00/Mtok | $5.00/Mtok |
| Output | $6.00/Mtok | $30.00/Mtok |
| Blended avg | $3.00/Mtok | $11.25/Mtok |
| Cached input | $0.200/Mtok | $0.500/Mtok |
| Specifications | ||
| Context window | 1M tokens | 1M tokens |
| Parameters | 2.4T | Proprietary |
| Speed (TPS) | — | — |
| Modalities | ||
| Input |
textimagevideo
|
textimage
|
| Benchmarks sources: Qwen official launch blog (Full Benchmark Table) / Vellum LLM Leaderboard | ||
| GPQA Diamond | 92.6 vendor | 94.6 |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 43.6 vendor | 47.2 |
| Avg benchmark score | — | 83.8 |
| Perf / dollar | — | 7.4 |
| SWE-Bench Verified | — | 96.2 |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | — | 88.8 |
| BrowseComp | — | 92.2 |
| OSWorld-Verified | — | 62.6 |
| ARC-AGI 2 | — | 92.5 |
| HumanEval | — | 96.2 |
| AutoBench | — | 18.1 |
| Independent composite scores each on its own scale — not part of the average above | ||
| AA Intelligence Index | 58.1 | 60.9 |
| AA Agentic Index | 58.4 | 57.8 |
| AA-Omniscience Index (−100–100) | 3.4 | 22 |
| GDPval-AA v2 | 1737 ELO | 1725.2 ELO |
| LMSYS Chatbot Arena | 1490.6 ELO | 1481.1 ELO |
| Providers | ||
| Available from |
Alibaba — $2.00/$6.00/Mtok
|
OpenAI — $5.00/$30.00/Mtok
|
Cost at scale
1M tokens · 50/50 input/output| Volume | Qwen3.8-Max | GPT-5.6 Sol | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1M tokens | $3 | $11.25 | $8.25 (73.3%) |
| 10M tokens | $30 | $112.5 | $82.5 (73.3%) |
| 100M tokens | $300 | $1125 | $825 (73.3%) |
| 1000M tokens | $3000 | $11250 | $8250 (73.3%) |
When to pick which
distilled from the pricing and spec data above- cost dominates: $3.00/Mtok blended vs $11.25 — 73.3% less on the same 50/50 token mix
- this pairing gives GPT-5.6 Sol no edge on price, context, cache discount, or measured performance — pick it only for qualitative fit (ecosystem, compliance, model behavior on your prompts)
The cheaper option here — Qwen3.8-Max costs $3.00/Mtok blended on Alibaba.
Summary
Qwen3.8-Max by Alibaba costs $2.00/Mtok input and $6.00/Mtok output, with a 1M-token context window. It supports text, image, video input.
GPT-5.6 Sol by OpenAI costs $5.00/Mtok input and $30.00/Mtok output, with a 1M-token context window. It supports text, image input.
On a blended cost basis, Qwen3.8-Max is 73.3% cheaper than GPT-5.6 Sol.
The two aren't directly comparable on average benchmark score: GPT-5.6 Sol has published per-benchmark results, while Qwen3.8-Max does not yet — it is measured today on independent composites (see the table above).
Note: Pricing is per million tokens. Actual costs vary with usage patterns, prompt caching, and batch discounts. Always verify against official provider pricing pages.