Llama vs Qwen

This page compares what Meta and Alibaba charge through their APIs. Every price below carries the day we read it and links to the page it came from. We do not rank quality: we tell you what each model costs, and since when.

At the top of each range

• Among Llama models that carry a relayed score, the highest on the Artificial Analysis intelligence index is Llama 4 Maverick, at 9.3, sold by OpenRouter at $0.6525 per million output tokens.
• Among Qwen models that carry a relayed score, the highest on the Artificial Analysis intelligence index is Qwen3.8 Max, at 53.4, sold by OpenRouter at $6.00 per million output tokens.

The index is produced by Artificial Analysis and relayed through OpenRouter's catalogue. It is not our measurement; we record it as a level 4 source and show it next to the price we read. A model without a score here has not been scored yet, which is not the same as scoring low.

Every model, side by side

Llama models

8 standard offers, from OpenRouter's prices: we track no price list published by Meta itself for these models.

Qwen models

52 standard offers, from OpenRouter's prices: we track no price list published by Alibaba itself for these models.

How these prices have moved

We hold dated captures of these models' prices back to 5 September 2024. We did not observe these values ourselves: they were recovered from public captures of OpenRouter's catalogue, and each links to its capture so you can check it without trusting us. Largest moves on output price:

Questions

Which is cheaper, Llama or Qwen?

The cheapest Llama model we track, Llama 3.1 8B Instruct, costs $0.080 per million output tokens and $0.050 per million input tokens, as sold by OpenRouter. The cheapest Qwen model, Qwen3.7 Flash, costs $0.130 per million output tokens and $0.030 per million input tokens, as sold by OpenRouter. At the entry level, Llama is 1.6 times cheaper than Qwen on output tokens. Prices read on 18 September 2026.

What is the cheapest Llama model?

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct, at $0.080 per million output tokens, read on 18 September 2026.

What is the cheapest Qwen model?

Qwen3.7 Flash, at $0.130 per million output tokens, read on 18 September 2026.

Where do these prices come from?

From the price lists OpenRouter and OpenRouter publish, read by our collectors. No figure on this page was produced by a language model.

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