QwQ-Plus vs o3
Side-by-side comparison of API pricing, specs, benchmarks, and capabilities
QwQ-Plus is 65.7% cheaper on blended cost ($1.20 vs $3.50/Mtok)
| Specification |
by Alibaba
|
by OpenAI
|
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Status | Current reasoning | Current reasoning |
| Released | Oct 1, 2025 | Apr 16, 2025 |
| Pricing per million tokens | ||
| Input | $0.800/Mtok | $2.00/Mtok |
| Output | $2.40/Mtok | $8.00/Mtok |
| Blended avg | $1.20/Mtok | $3.50/Mtok |
| Cached input | — | $0.500/Mtok |
| Specifications | ||
| Context window | 131K tokens | 200K tokens |
| Parameters | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Speed (TPS) | — | — |
| Modalities | ||
| Input |
text
|
textimage
|
| Benchmarks sources: Alibaba model card / Artificial Analysis | ||
| GPQA Diamond | 65 vendor | — |
| SWE-Bench Verified | 40 vendor | — |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 20 vendor | — |
| ARC-AGI 2 | 22 vendor | — |
| AIME 2025 | 68 vendor | — |
| MMMLU | 78 vendor | — |
| BFCL | 65 vendor | — |
| HumanEval | 83 vendor | — |
| MATH 500 | 75 vendor | — |
| Independent composite scores each on its own scale — not part of the average above | ||
| AA-Omniscience Index (−100–100) | — | -15.6 |
| Providers | ||
| Available from |
Alibaba — $0.800/$2.40/Mtok
|
OpenAI — $2.00/$8.00/Mtok
|
Cost at scale
1M tokens · 50/50 input/output| Volume | QwQ-Plus | o3 | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1M tokens | $1.2 | $3.5 | $2.3 (65.7%) |
| 10M tokens | $12 | $35 | $23 (65.7%) |
| 100M tokens | $120 | $350 | $230 (65.7%) |
| 1000M tokens | $1200 | $3500 | $2300 (65.7%) |
When to pick which
distilled from the pricing and spec data above
Pick QwQ-Plus if…
- cost dominates: $1.20/Mtok blended vs $3.50 — 65.7% less on the same 50/50 token mix
Pick o3 if…
- your workload re-reads context (agents, RAG, long chats): cached input costs $0.500/Mtok — 75% off its list input price, a discount QwQ-Plus doesn't offer
- you need the longer context: 200K tokens vs 131K (1.5×)
Try QwQ-Plus on Alibaba
The cheaper option here — QwQ-Plus costs $1.20/Mtok blended on Alibaba.
Summary
QwQ-Plus by Alibaba costs $0.800/Mtok input and $2.40/Mtok output, with a 131K-token context window. It supports text input.
o3 by OpenAI costs $2.00/Mtok input and $8.00/Mtok output, with a 200K-token context window. It supports text, image input.
On a blended cost basis, QwQ-Plus is 65.7% cheaper than o3.
Note: Pricing is per million tokens. Actual costs vary with usage patterns, prompt caching, and batch discounts. Always verify against official provider pricing pages.
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