AI model comparison
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct vs Qwen3 30B A3B
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
Qwen
Qwen3 30B A3B
Qwen3, the latest generation in the Qwen large language model series, features both dense and mixture-of-experts (MoE) architectures to excel in reasoning, multilingual support, and advanced agent tasks.
- Input / 1M
- $0.12
- Output / 1M
- $0.50
- Context
- 41K
At a glance
Quick verdict
How the two models stack up on the things people ask about most.
Lower price
Qwen3 30B A3B
1.8x cheaper for a typical chat
Higher intelligence score
Qwen3 30B A3B
7.6 vs 7.3 on Artificial Analysis
Larger context window
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct
262K vs 41K tokens
Newer release
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct
Released October 14, 2025
Benchmarks
Benchmark scores
Independent scores from Artificial Analysis. Higher is better.
Intelligence index
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct7.3Qwen3 30B A3B7.6Coding index
Qwen3 VL 8B InstructNot availableQwen3 30B A3BNot availableAgentic index
Qwen3 VL 8B InstructNot availableQwen3 30B A3BNot availablePricing
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct vs Qwen3 30B A3B API pricing
Per-token API rates. Cheaper option highlighted.
| Metric | Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct | Qwen3 30B A3B |
|---|---|---|
| Input tokensPer 1M tokens | $0.25 | $0.12 |
| Output tokensPer 1M tokens | $0.75 | $0.50 |
| Cached input (read)Per 1M tokens | $0.12 | Not available |
| Cache writePer 1M tokens | Not available | Not 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
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct$0.88Qwen3 30B A3B$0.49Coding task
30K in, 4K out
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct$10.50$6.60 cachedQwen3 30B A3B$5.60Long document summary
150K in, 2K out
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct$39$19.50 cachedQwen3 30B A3B$19Specs
Context window and capabilities
How much each model can read, how much it can write, and what it accepts as input.
| Metric | Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct | Qwen3 30B A3B |
|---|---|---|
| Context window | 262K tokens | 41K tokens |
| Max output | 236K tokens | 16K tokens |
| Input types | Image, Text | Text |
| Output types | Text | Text |
| Reasoning effort levels | Not available | Not available |
| Default reasoning effort | Not available | Not available |
| Release date | October 14, 2025 | April 28, 2025 |
Features
Supported features
API features available for each model.
| Metric | Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct | Qwen3 30B A3B |
|---|---|---|
| Tool calling | Supported | Supported |
| Structured outputs | Supported | Supported |
| JSON mode | Supported | Supported |
| Reasoning | Not supported | Supported |
| Temperature | Supported | Supported |
| Stop sequences | Supported | Supported |
| Deterministic seed | Supported | Supported |
| Verbosity control | Not supported | Not supported |
Keep exploring
More on these models
Other head-to-heads, the full model page, and the alternatives list for each model.
Qwen3 VL 8B InstructView full model details- Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct vs GPT-4o-mini
- Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct vs Qwen3 30B A3B Instruct 2507
- Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct vs Llama 3.3 70B Instruct
- Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct vs Qwen3 Coder Next
- Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct vs Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct
- Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct vs Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Thinking
- Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct vs Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct
- Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct vs Solar Pro 3
- Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct vs Qwen2.5 72B Instruct
- Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct vs Sonar
- Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct vs Hermes 3 405B Instruct
- Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct vs Hermes 3 70B Instruct
- Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct vs Qwen2.5 Coder 32B Instruct
- Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct vs Saba
- Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct vs GPT-3.5 Turbo
Qwen3 30B A3BView full model details- Qwen3 30B A3B vs Qwen3.8 Flash
- Qwen3 30B A3B vs GPT-4o-mini
- Qwen3 30B A3B vs Qwen3 235B A22B Instruct 2507
- Qwen3 30B A3B vs Qwen3 Coder Next
- Qwen3 30B A3B vs Qwen3 32B
- Qwen3 30B A3B vs Qwen3 30B A3B Instruct 2507
- Qwen3 30B A3B vs Llama 3.3 70B Instruct
- Qwen3 30B A3B vs Qwen3 14B
- Qwen3 30B A3B vs Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct
- Qwen3 30B A3B vs GPT-4.1 Nano
- Qwen3 30B A3B vs Solar Pro 3
- Qwen3 30B A3B vs Qwen2.5 72B Instruct
- Qwen3 30B A3B vs Hermes 3 70B Instruct
- Qwen3 30B A3B vs Qwen2.5 Coder 32B Instruct
- Qwen3 30B A3B vs Saba
Our take
Qwen3 30B A3B is 1.8x cheaper for a typical chat. Qwen3 30B A3B scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (7.6 vs 7.3). Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct has the larger context window (262K vs 41K 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 Qwen3 30B A3B cheaper?
Qwen3 30B A3B is cheaper for a typical chat (2K input tokens and 500 output tokens). Qwen3 30B A3B costs $0.12 per 1M input tokens and $0.50 per 1M output tokens, while Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct costs $0.25 per 1M input tokens and $0.75 per 1M output tokens.
Which has a bigger context window, Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct or Qwen3 30B A3B?
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct supports up to 262K tokens of context, compared with 41K for Qwen3 30B A3B.
Is Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct smarter than Qwen3 30B A3B?
On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct scores 7.3 and Qwen3 30B A3B scores 7.6, putting Qwen3 30B A3B 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 Qwen3 30B A3B at the same time?
Yes. Shortcut Chat sends one prompt to multiple models at once, so you can see Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct and Qwen3 30B A3B answer side by side and keep the better response.
Why choose? Ask both.
Send one prompt to Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct and Qwen3 30B A3B at the same time. Compare the answers side by side and keep the best one.