multimodal model comparison
Qwen3.8-Max vs Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash
Qwen3.8-Max and Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash are both current multimodal models, from Alibaba Qwen. Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash is 93% cheaper per 1M input tokens than Qwen3.8-Max, $0.15 vs $2. Both accept 1,000,000 tokens of context.
Data verified October 12, 2026 · Dataset 2026-10-12
Side by side
Standard-tier prices in effect today. The better value in each row is highlighted.
| Fact | Qwen3.8-Max | Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Price per 1M input tokens | $2 | $0.15 (better) |
| Price per 1M output tokens | $6 | $0.47 (better) |
| Cost of 10M input and 2M output tokens | $32 | $2.44 (better) |
| Arena Text | 1483 Elo (#12 of 39) | Not measured |
| GPQA Diamond | 92.7% (#17 of 37) | Not measured |
| FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2) | 74.7% (#17 of 37) | Not measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 45.8% (#22 of 34) | Not measured |
| Provider | Alibaba Qwen | Alibaba Qwen |
| Release date | August 3, 2026 | September 20, 2026 |
| Access | API only | API only |
| Context window | 1,000,000 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens |
| Max output | 131,072 tokens | 131,072 tokens |
| Input | text, image, video | text, image, audio, video |
| Output | text | text |
When to choose each
Qwen3.8-Max
Best for
- Output-heavy generation workloads where the $6 per million output rate is the deciding factor
- Agentic and coding evaluations that need a 1M-token window at mid-tier cost
Watch out for
- Two releases share the name: the original 3 August 2026 model and the 0902 refresh. The rates and limits here are read from the 0902 listing
- Reported benchmark placements come from Alibaba and from public arena boards rather than a common pinned snapshot, so they are not comparable with the LiveBench results in this dataset
Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash
Best for
- Long audio and video understanding at low cost
- Agent pipelines that must reason over meetings, calls or recorded media
Watch out for
- Output is text only; for spoken replies Alibaba lists a separate realtime variant
- Alibaba's comparisons with Gemini 3.8 Flash are self-reported and have not been reproduced independently here
- The release date is the Alibaba Cloud announcement date, 2026-09-20
Qwen3.8-Max vs Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash FAQ
Which is cheaper, Qwen3.8-Max or Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash?
Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash is 93% cheaper per 1M input tokens than Qwen3.8-Max, $0.15 vs $2. For 10M input and 2M output tokens, Qwen3.8-Max costs $32 and Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash $2.44 at standard rates.
Which has the larger context window, Qwen3.8-Max or Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash?
Both accept 1,000,000 tokens of context.
Related comparisons
Production evaluation
Choosing between Qwen3.8-Max and Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash?
Public benchmarks narrow the shortlist. We run both on your own tasks, data and cost limits, then build the routing and review controls to run the winner in production.
- A head-to-head evaluation on your real workload
- Routing between models by cost and difficulty