Qwen 3.8 Flash pricing for chatbot

Quick start

Call Qwen 3.8 Flash with the OpenAI Python SDK pointed at DashScope:

import os
from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://dashscope.aliyuncs.com/compatible-mode/v1",
    api_key=os.environ["DASHSCOPE_API_KEY"],
)
response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="qwen3.8-flash",
    max_tokens=1000,
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Your prompt here"}]
)
# Cost: ~$0.000770 per call at standard rates
# Input:  $0.15/MTok
# Output: $0.47/MTok

How Qwen 3.8 Flash compares on cost

Per-call cost for all models scoring 50+ on chatbot benchmarks. Hover for details.

Highest-quality affordable option: GPT 5.6 Luna at $0.001600/call (2.1x the cost, 85/100 quality). Qwen 3.8 Flash is already the cheapest choice for chatbot.

What drives chatbot cost

Conversational cost compounds: every turn resends the history, so the tenth message in a thread costs several times the first. Cost grows with the square of conversation length unless you cache the prefix or truncate history. Prompt caching is not an optimization here, it is the difference between a viable and an unviable unit economic.

For Qwen 3.8 Flash specifically, that means output tokens cost 3.1x more than input, at $0.47 vs $0.15 per MTok. At this use case’s 2,000/1,000 token split, output accounts for 61% of the $0.000770 per-call cost.

Qwen 3.8 Flash quality benchmarks for chatbot

Benchmark data for chatbot is pending for Qwen 3.8 Flash. Test against your own evaluation suite before moving to production.

Benchmark data is not yet available for Qwen 3.8 Flash. We recommend testing against your own evaluation criteria.

About Qwen 3.8 Flash

Prices from help.aliyun.com/en/model-studio (qwen3.8-flash, read 2026-10-11). Cache hit: $0.016/MTok input. Not yet benchmarked, so never recommended.

Other models from Alibaba (Qwen)

You can compare Qwen 3.8 Flash head-to-head against any other model on our model comparison pages, or track how pricing has changed over time on the pricing history tracker.

Frequently asked questions