GPT-5.6 Luna vs Qwen-Plus
Side-by-side comparison of API pricing, specs, benchmarks, and capabilities
| Specification |
by OpenAI
|
by Alibaba
|
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Status | Current mid tier | Current mid tier |
| Released | Jul 9, 2026 | Oct 1, 2025 |
| Pricing per million tokens | ||
| Input | $0.200/Mtok | $0.400/Mtok |
| Output | $1.20/Mtok | $1.20/Mtok |
| Blended avg | $0.700/Mtok | $0.800/Mtok |
| Cached input | $0.020/Mtok | — |
| Specifications | ||
| Context window | 1M tokens | 131K tokens |
| Parameters | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Speed (TPS) | — | — |
| Modalities | ||
| Input |
textimage
|
text
|
| Benchmarks sources: Vellum LLM Leaderboard / LMSYS Chatbot Arena (UC Berkeley) | ||
| Avg benchmark score | 90.7 | — |
| Perf / dollar | 25.9 | — |
| GPQA Diamond | 92.3 | — |
| SWE-Bench Verified | 93 | — |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 84.3 | — |
| HumanEval | 93 | — |
| Independent composite scores each on its own scale — not part of the average above | ||
| AA Intelligence Index | 51.2 | — |
| AA Agentic Index | 45.6 | — |
| AA-Omniscience Index (−100–100) | -11.2 | — |
| GDPval-AA v2 | 1581.9 ELO | — |
| LMSYS Chatbot Arena | — | 1346.1 ELO |
| Providers | ||
| Available from |
OpenAI — $0.200/$1.20/Mtok
|
Alibaba — $0.400/$1.20/Mtok
|
Cost at scale
1M tokens · 50/50 input/output| Volume | GPT-5.6 Luna | Qwen-Plus | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1M tokens | $0.7 | $0.8 | $0.1 (12.5%) |
| 10M tokens | $7 | $8 | $1 (12.5%) |
| 100M tokens | $70 | $80 | $10 (12.5%) |
| 1000M tokens | $700 | $800 | $100 (12.5%) |
When to pick which
distilled from the pricing and spec data above- cost dominates: $0.700/Mtok blended vs $0.800 — 12.5% less on the same 50/50 token mix
- your workload re-reads context (agents, RAG, long chats): cached input costs $0.020/Mtok — 90% off its list input price, a discount Qwen-Plus doesn't offer
- you need the longer context: 1M tokens vs 131K (8×)
- this pairing gives Qwen-Plus no edge on price, context, cache discount, or measured performance — pick it only for qualitative fit (ecosystem, compliance, model behavior on your prompts)
Price movement
recorded changes since we began tracking each model · last checked Aug 1, 2026| Model | Changes | Latest move | Old → new $/M |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-5.6 Luna | 1 | price cut on Aug 1, 2026 | $1/$6 → $0.2/$1.2/Mtok |
| Qwen-Plus | 0 | — no move | Stable since we began tracking — no change recorded |
The cheaper option here — GPT-5.6 Luna costs $0.700/Mtok blended on OpenAI.
Summary
GPT-5.6 Luna by OpenAI costs $0.200/Mtok input and $1.20/Mtok output, with a 1M-token context window. It supports text, image input.
Qwen-Plus by Alibaba costs $0.400/Mtok input and $1.20/Mtok output, with a 131K-token context window. It supports text input.
On a blended cost basis, GPT-5.6 Luna is 12.5% cheaper than Qwen-Plus. It also has a larger context window.
The two aren't directly comparable on average benchmark score: GPT-5.6 Luna has published per-benchmark results, while Qwen-Plus 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.