A visual comparison of list API pricing for Qwen 3.8 Max and the frontier
model lineups from Anthropic and OpenAI, as published on vendor pricing pages.
Qwen 3.8 Max undercuts every comparable frontier model on input, output, and cached-token pricing —
while including a 1M-token context window at base price.
QwenOpenAIAnthropicUSD per 1M tokensStandard list pricing
7.5×
cheaper than Claude Fable 5
$8 vs $60 for 1M input + 1M output tokens at list price
4.4×
cheaper than GPT-5.6-sol
$8 vs $35 for the same 2M blended tokens, before any long-context surcharge
1M
token context window, included
Full 1M context at base price — no long-context surcharge (OpenAI bills up to 2× beyond short context)
List price, per million tokens
Lower is better
Input pricing
USD per 1M input tokens
Qwen 3.8 MaxBest value$2.00
GPT-5.6-sol$5.00
Claude Opus 5$5.00
Claude Fable 5$10.00
$0$5$10
Qwen 3.8 Max input is 60% below GPT-5.6-sol and 80% below Claude Fable 5 — the cheapest frontier-tier input price on the market.
Output pricing
USD per 1M output tokens
Qwen 3.8 MaxBest value$6.00
Claude Opus 5$25.00
GPT-5.6-sol$30.00
Claude Fable 5$50.00
$0$25$50
Output tokens: 80% below GPT-5.6-sol and 88% below Claude Fable 5 — the cheapest frontier-tier output price on the market.
The blended bottom line
1M input + 1M output tokens
Combined cost per 2M blended tokens
USD, list price, short context
Qwen 3.8 MaxBest value$8.00
Claude Opus 5$30.00
GPT-5.6-sol$35.00
Claude Fable 5$60.00
$0$30$60
The same 2M-token workload costs $8 on Qwen 3.8 Max — 4.4× cheaper than OpenAI’s
flagship GPT-5.6-sol ($35) and 7.5× cheaper than Anthropic’s flagship Claude Fable 5 ($60).
One-time cache creation on Qwen is 60% below sol and 80% below Fable 5.
Full pricing detail
USD per 1M tokens
Model
Input
Cached input
Cache write
Output
Long-ctx input
Long-ctx output
Qwen 3.8 MaxBest value
$2.00
$0.25
$2.50
$6.00
Included — 1M context at base price
Claude Fable 5 Anthropic
$10.00
$1.00
$12.50
$50.00
—
—
Claude Mythos 5 Anthropic
$10.00
$1.00
$12.50
$50.00
—
—
Claude Opus 5 Anthropic
$5.00
$0.50
$6.25
$25.00
—
—
GPT-5.6-sol OpenAI
$5.00
$0.50
$6.25
$30.00
$10.00
$45.00
Qwen: cached input shown at implicit-cache price ($0.25); explicit cache reads are $0.17. Cache write = explicit cache creation. Context window is 1M tokens (991K max input, 131K max output) at base price.
Anthropic: cached input = cache hits & refreshes; cache write = 5-minute cache writes (1-hour writes are $20.00 Fable 5 / $10.00 Opus 5). Claude Mythos 5 is priced identically to Fable 5 and noted as limited availability.
OpenAI: long-context prices apply beyond the short-context window — up to 2× input and 1.5× output. Data-residency processing adds a 10% uplift where applicable.
Blended cost = 1M input + 1M output tokens at list price.