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Model comparison

Qwen3-235B-A22B vs Qwen 3.8 Max

Two Qwen tiers compared on the figures that decide which one a workload actually needs.

Catalog record checked September 26, 2026Individual provider fields may changeEvidence confidence: High — see receipts below

Qwen

Qwen3-235B-A22B

Balanced · Open weights

vs

Qwen

Qwen 3.8 Max

Frontier · Open weights

AI model capability comparison
SpecificationQwen3-235B-A22BQwen 3.8 Max
ProviderQwenQwen
TierBalancedFrontier
Context window128KWinner: 1M
Max output33KWinner: 131K
Input / 1M tokensWinner: $0.70$2
Output / 1M tokensWinner: $2.80$6
WeightsOpenOpen
Parameters235B total / 22B active (MoE)2.4T total / 95B active (MoE)
Reasoning levelslow, high, maxlow, high, max
Modalitiestexttext, image, video
LicenseApache 2.0Not disclosedUnverified
API model idqwen3-235b-a22bqwen3.8-max
ReleasedApril 29, 2025August 3, 2026
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (2026-09-26)9.5Winner: 45.4
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (2026-08-03)Not verifiedUnverified86.6
GPQA Diamond (2026-08-03)Not verifiedUnverified92.6
Humanity's Last Exam (2026-08-14)Not verifiedUnverified56.2
SWE-bench Verified (2026-09-01)Not verifiedUnverified85.6

Prices are USD per million tokens at standard rates, excluding batch and caching discounts. Bold indicates the better figure where one is objectively better. Values we could not confirm from the provider are shown as “Not verified” rather than estimated.

Benchmark receipts

Where each score comes from, and how far it can be compared across models.

Pricing tiers

Qwen3-235B-A22B: Model Studio International $0.70 input / $2.80 output per MTok (non-thinking); thinking-mode output $8.40. Open weights (Apache 2.0) for self-hosting; 32,768-token recommended output.

Qwen 3.8 Max: $2/$6 per MTok (Alibaba Cloud Model Studio). 1M context (up to 991K input), 131,072 max output. A dated snapshot qwen3.8-max-0902 is also listed; open weights shipped separately as Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B.

BalancedOpen weightsRecord checked September 26, 2026

Qwen3-235B-A22B

Qwen3-235B-A22B is Alibaba's widely deployed open-weight MoE — 235B/22B, strong price-performance.

Best for

  • Open-weight deployments
  • Self-hosting
  • Multilingual

Watch out

Needs multi-GPU for the 235B total; hosted rates vary.

FrontierOpen weightsRecord checked September 26, 2026

Qwen 3.8 Max

Qwen 3.8 Max is Alibaba's flagship — 2.4T MoE with 1M-class context, near frontier on the Intelligence Index.

Best for

  • Open-weight frontier work
  • Long-context
  • Multimodal

Watch out

Open weights dropped 2026-08-12 under a custom (non-Apache) licence with vision and 1M-context stripped from the open checkpoint — the open checkpoint is not the full API model. Verify the licence before commercial use.

When the cheaper one wins

Qwen3-235B-A22B is cheaper on output at $2.80 per million tokens against $6 for Qwen 3.8 Max — about 2.1×. Use the cheaper tier for classification, extraction, summarisation, and any task where the expensive model’s extra score does not change the accepted output. The expensive one only pays if your hardest task actually fails on the cheap tier. These are standard-tier API rates, excluding batch and cache discounts.

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Evidence confidence: High

How strong and complete the evidence behind this comparison is — not a prediction of which model is better.

  • Pricing verified on both sides — Input and output rates are verified for both models.
  • 5/5 core specs verified on both sides — All core specifications verified for both models.
  • 1 shared named benchmark with differing scores — Measured on: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index.
  • Verified within the last 90 days — Newest catalog check was 2 days ago.
  • Both models carry source citations — Each side has at least two catalog sources on record.

Source receipts

Each catalog figure was checked against the provider or an independent second source on the date shown.

Related comparisons

Diving deeper on one model? Qwen3-235B-A22B · Qwen 3.8 Max

Common questions

Qwen3-235B-A22B vs Qwen 3.8 Max

Answered from the verified figures on this page rather than general guidance.

Is Qwen3-235B-A22B or Qwen 3.8 Max cheaper for input?
Qwen3-235B-A22B is cheaper at $0.70 per million input tokens, against $2 for Qwen 3.8 Max — roughly 2.9× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; Qwen3-235B-A22B has tiered pricing: Model Studio International $0.70 input / $2.80 output per MTok (non-thinking); thinking-mode output $8.40. Open weights (Apache 2.0) for self-hosting; 32,768-token recommended output. Qwen 3.8 Max has tiered pricing: $2/$6 per MTok (Alibaba Cloud Model Studio). 1M context (up to 991K input), 131,072 max output. A dated snapshot qwen3.8-max-0902 is also listed; open weights shipped separately as Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B.
Is Qwen3-235B-A22B or Qwen 3.8 Max cheaper for output?
Qwen3-235B-A22B is cheaper at $2.80 per million output tokens, against $6 for Qwen 3.8 Max — roughly 2.1× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; Qwen3-235B-A22B has tiered pricing: Model Studio International $0.70 input / $2.80 output per MTok (non-thinking); thinking-mode output $8.40. Open weights (Apache 2.0) for self-hosting; 32,768-token recommended output. Qwen 3.8 Max has tiered pricing: $2/$6 per MTok (Alibaba Cloud Model Studio). 1M context (up to 991K input), 131,072 max output. A dated snapshot qwen3.8-max-0902 is also listed; open weights shipped separately as Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B.
Which has the larger context window, Qwen3-235B-A22B or Qwen 3.8 Max?
Qwen 3.8 Max accepts 1M tokens against 128K for Qwen3-235B-A22B. This only matters if you routinely send very long documents or large codebases.
Do Qwen3-235B-A22B and Qwen 3.8 Max support the same reasoning levels?
Yes — both accept the same effort settings: "low", "high", "max". Higher effort costs more and takes longer, so start low and raise it only where output quality actually improves.
Should I use Qwen3-235B-A22B or Qwen 3.8 Max?
Qwen3-235B-A22B is the balanced tier and Qwen 3.8 Max the frontier tier. The useful question is whether your hardest task actually fails on the cheaper one — most production volume such as classification, extraction and summarisation does not.

Next step

Choosing between them

The verified figures that separate this pair, computed from the catalog rather than restated boilerplate.

  • Input price: Qwen3-235B-A22B costs $0.70 per 1M tokens versus $2 for Qwen 3.8 Max — a 2.9x difference at the headline tier.
  • Context: Qwen 3.8 Max takes 1M against 128K for Qwen3-235B-A22B — only decisive if your prompts approach the smaller window.
  • Positioning: Qwen3-235B-A22B sits in the balanced tier, Qwen 3.8 Max in the frontier tier — most production volume (classification, extraction, summarisation) does not need the pricier tier.
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