Claude Opus 4.6 vs Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking
Side-by-side API pricing and Artificial Analysis performance for Claude Opus 4.6 (Anthropic) and Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking (Alibaba (Qwen)). Green cells mark the better value in each row.
Prices updated Sep 18, 2026, 2:54 PM UTC · refreshed hourly
| Claude Opus 4.6 Anthropic | Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking Alibaba (Qwen) | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| Input $/1M | $5.00 | $0.18 |
| Output $/1M | $25.00 | $2.10 |
| Blended $/1M (3:1) | $10.00 | $0.66 |
| RAG example (30K in / 2K out) | $0.2 | $0.0096 |
| Quality & speed | ||
| Intelligence Index | 26.4 | — |
| Coding Index | — | — |
| Agentic Index | — | — |
| Output speed (tok/s) | 0 | — |
| Time to first token | 0s | — |
| Specs | ||
| Context window | 1M | 131K |
| Input modalities | text, image, file | image, text |
FAQ
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.6 or Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking?
Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking has the lower blended API price at $0.66 per 1M tokens (3:1 input:output mix), versus $10.00 for the other model. Prices are live from OpenRouter and refresh about hourly.
Which is better for RAG workloads?
For a typical RAG request (30K input / 2K output tokens), Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking costs about $0.0096 per request versus $0.2. Also compare context windows: Claude Opus 4.6 offers 1M and Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking offers 131K.
Which scores higher on Artificial Analysis benchmarks?
Claude Opus 4.6 leads on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (26.4 vs —). Check coding and agentic indices on this page for workload-specific tradeoffs.