Ling 3.1 Flash vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Ling 3.1 Flash is 26.7× cheaper for typical traffic ; Qwen3.8 Max (0902) scores higher on the Artificial Analysis intelligence index (45.4 vs 41.1).
Prices checked Oct 21, 2026
| Ling 3.1 Flash | Qwen3.8 Max (0902) | |
|---|---|---|
| Developer | inclusionAI | Qwen |
| Input / 1M tokens | $0.075 | $2.00 |
| Output / 1M tokens | $0.225 | $6.00 |
| Cached input / 1M | $0.015 | $0.25 |
| Context window | 262K | 1M |
| Max output | 236K | 131K |
| Intelligence index | 41.1 | 45.4 |
| Image input | No | Yes |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes |
| Reasoning mode | Yes | Yes |
| Open weights | No | No |
Monthly cost for common workloads
| Workload | Ling 3.1 Flash | Qwen3.8 Max (0902) |
|---|---|---|
| Customer chatbot 1,000 conversations a day, 8 turns each | $32.94 | $846 |
| Document Q&A (RAG) 500 questions a day over retrieved documents | $7.90 | $209 |
| Coding / tool-using agent 200 tasks a day, long tool-heavy contexts | $16.20 | $392 |
| Content generation 30 long articles a day | $0.709 | $18.90 |
| Classification / extraction 100,000 short items a day | $77.63 | $2,070 |
Estimates include cached-input discounts where a model offers them. Try your own numbers in the cost calculator.
Which one to choose
- Lowest cost: Ling 3.1 Flash — 26.7× cheaper on a 3:1 input/output mix.
- Longer documents: Qwen3.8 Max (0902) reads up to 1M tokens at once.
- Capabilities: Ling 3.1 Flash — tools, reasoning, JSON; Qwen3.8 Max (0902) — vision, tools, reasoning, JSON.