AI model comparison

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct vs GPT-3.5 Turbo

Pricing, context window, benchmarks, and features compared side by side. Or skip the guesswork and send one prompt to both.

Qwen3-VL-8B-Instruct is a multimodal vision-language model from the Qwen3-VL series, built for high-fidelity understanding and reasoning across text, images, and video.

Input / 1M
$0.25
Output / 1M
$0.75
Context
262K

GPT-3.5 Turbo is OpenAI's fastest model. It can understand and generate natural language or code, and is optimized for chat and traditional completion tasks.

Input / 1M
$0.50
Output / 1M
$1.50
Context
16K

At a glance

Quick verdict

How the two models stack up on the things people ask about most.

Lower price

qwen logo

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

2x cheaper for a typical chat

Higher intelligence score

qwen logo

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

7.3 vs 5.5 on Artificial Analysis

Larger context window

qwen logo

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

262K vs 16K tokens

Newer release

qwen logo

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Released October 14, 2025

Benchmarks

Benchmark scores

Independent scores from Artificial Analysis. Higher is better.

Intelligence index

qwen logoQwen3 VL 8B Instruct7.3
openai logoGPT-3.5 Turbo5.5

Coding index

qwen logoQwen3 VL 8B InstructNot available
openai logoGPT-3.5 Turbo10.7

Agentic index

qwen logoQwen3 VL 8B InstructNot available
openai logoGPT-3.5 TurboNot available

Pricing

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct vs GPT-3.5 Turbo API pricing

Per-token API rates. Cheaper option highlighted.

Metricqwen logoQwen3 VL 8B Instructopenai logoGPT-3.5 Turbo
Input tokensPer 1M tokens$0.25$0.50
Output tokensPer 1M tokens$0.75$1.50
Cached input (read)Per 1M tokens$0.12Not available
Cache writePer 1M tokensNot availableNot available

What it costs in practice

Estimated cost per 1,000 requests at standard rates. Coding and long-document figures also show the cost when the input is already cached.

Chat message

2K in, 500 out

qwen logoQwen3 VL 8B Instruct$0.88
openai logoGPT-3.5 Turbo$1.75

Coding task

30K in, 4K out

qwen logoQwen3 VL 8B Instruct$10.50$6.60 cached
openai logoGPT-3.5 Turbo$21

Long document summary

150K in, 2K out

qwen logoQwen3 VL 8B Instruct$39$19.50 cached
openai logoGPT-3.5 Turbo$78

Specs

Context window and capabilities

How much each model can read, how much it can write, and what it accepts as input.

Metricqwen logoQwen3 VL 8B Instructopenai logoGPT-3.5 Turbo
Context window262K tokens16K tokens
Max output236K tokens4K tokens
Input typesImage, TextText
Output typesTextText
Reasoning effort levelsNot availableNot available
Default reasoning effortNot availableNot available
Release dateOctober 14, 2025May 28, 2023

Features

Supported features

API features available for each model.

Metricqwen logoQwen3 VL 8B Instructopenai logoGPT-3.5 Turbo
Tool callingSupportedSupported
Structured outputsSupportedSupported
JSON modeSupportedSupported
ReasoningNot supportedNot supported
TemperatureSupportedSupported
Stop sequencesSupportedSupported
Deterministic seedSupportedSupported
Verbosity controlNot supportedNot supported

Our take

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is 2x cheaper for a typical chat. Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (7.3 vs 5.5). Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct has the larger context window (262K vs 16K tokens). The right pick depends on your workload, so the quickest way to settle it is to send the same prompt to both and compare.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Is Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct or GPT-3.5 Turbo cheaper?

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is cheaper for a typical chat (2K input tokens and 500 output tokens). Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct costs $0.25 per 1M input tokens and $0.75 per 1M output tokens, while GPT-3.5 Turbo costs $0.50 per 1M input tokens and $1.50 per 1M output tokens.

Which has a bigger context window, Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct or GPT-3.5 Turbo?

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct supports up to 262K tokens of context, compared with 16K for GPT-3.5 Turbo.

Is Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct smarter than GPT-3.5 Turbo?

On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct scores 7.3 and GPT-3.5 Turbo scores 5.5, putting Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct ahead. Benchmarks don't capture everything, so the best test is running your own prompts through both.

Can I use Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct and GPT-3.5 Turbo at the same time?

Yes. Shortcut Chat sends one prompt to multiple models at once, so you can see Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct and GPT-3.5 Turbo answer side by side and keep the better response.

qwen logoopenai logo

Why choose? Ask both.

Send one prompt to Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct and GPT-3.5 Turbo at the same time. Compare the answers side by side and keep the best one.