How much does Qwen3 Max Thinking cost per million tokens?

Qwen3 Max Thinking costs $0.78 per million input tokens and $3.90 per million output tokens at list price.

What is the context window of Qwen3 Max Thinking?

Qwen3 Max Thinking accepts up to 262,144 tokens of context and returns up to 65,536 output tokens.

How much do 1,000 chat messages cost with Qwen3 Max Thinking?

About $2.73, assuming 1,000 input + 500 output tokens per message.

Is there a cheaper alternative to Qwen3 Max Thinking?

In the same price range, OpenAI GPT-6 Luna Pro ($0.1 / $0.5), OpenAI GPT-6 Luna ($0.1 / $0.5), Z.ai GLM 5.3 FlashX ($0.37 / $1.25) cost less per token. Quality differs: test on your own prompts.

Where can I buy Qwen API credits for less?

Discount credit books resell OpenRouter usage below face value within their depth, OpenRouter adds a 5.5% card fee, and Qwen sells its own credits at face value. The live table on this page ranks them for $100 of usage.

Qwen · live price

Qwen3 Max Thinking API pricing

Qwen3-Max-Thinking is the flagship reasoning model in the Qwen3 series, designed for high-stakes cognitive tasks that require deep, multi-step reasoning. By significantly scaling model capacity and reinforcement learning compute, it...

Mid-range ($1–5 per 1M)Tool callingReasoningRetiring 2026-10-09

Input: $0.78; per 1M tokens
Output: $3.90; per 1M tokens
Cached input: –; per 1M tokens
Context: 262K; 66K max output

List price from OpenRouter, which passes Qwen's price through without markup. Refreshed hourly. Released February 9, 2026. Model id qwen/qwen3-max-thinking.

What Qwen3 Max Thinking costs in practice

At list price, before any batch or caching discount.

1,000 chat messages

$2.73

1,000 input + 500 output tokens each

1,000 RAG questions

$8.19

8,000 input + 500 output tokens each

100 coding-agent steps

$3.12

30,000 input + 2,000 output tokens each, no caching

Qwen3 Max Thinking price history

No price change since we started tracking on 2026-10-01. We record prices daily; changes will show here.

Qwen3 Max Thinking price by host

One host serves this model through OpenRouter.

Alibaba$0.78 in · $3.90 out · 262K ctx · 99.6% uptime 24h

Where to buy Qwen credits for less

Qwen3 Max Thinking costs the same per token everywhere it's sold through OpenRouter. What changes is the price of the credits. Live quotes for $100 of usage:

#	Where you buy	You payYou pay for $100.00 of usage	vs list price	Price source
1	OrbioCardCheapest right now Credits from a discount book, plus a 5% platform fee and card processing, both included in the quote.	$85.10 incl. $2.60 card processing	-14.9%	live quote
2	smaaartCard Credits from a discount book, plus a 5% platform fee on face value. Card processing and taxes shown at checkout.	$95.00 + card processing and tax at checkout (not in this number)	-5.0%	live quote
3	Direct from the labCard Prepaid credits at face value (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google…). Taxes may apply.	$100.00 no top-up fee	list price	face value
4	OpenRouterCrypto 5% on crypto purchases. No markup on model prices.	$105.00 fees included	+5.0%	published fee
5	OpenRouterCard 5.5% on card purchases, $0.80 minimum. No markup on model prices.	$105.50 fees included	+5.5%	published fee

Disclosure: this site is run by the team behind smaaart, one of the options compared. Tables are ranked by price only, from live quotes and published fees, including when smaaart isn't first. How we compare

Qwen3 Max Thinking cost calculator

Enter your monthly tokens to price your own usage.

Model$0.78 in / $3.90 out per 1M tokens · list price, liveInput tokens / month (millions)Output tokens / month (millions)

Usage at list price$78.00/ month

Cheaper alternatives to Qwen3 Max Thinking

Other labs' models in the same price range or the one below, cheaper per token.

Model	Input / 1M	Output / 1M	Blended 3:1	Context
OpenAI: GPT-6 Luna Pro	$0.1	$0.5	$0.2	1.1M
OpenAI: GPT-6 Luna	$0.1	$0.5	$0.2	1.1M
Z.ai: GLM 5.3 FlashX	$0.37	$1.25	$0.59	1.0M
DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash	$0.03	$0.5	$0.147	1.0M
Google: Gemini 3.8 Flash	$0.75	$3.75	$1.50	1.0M
Z.ai: GLM 5.3 Flash	$0.15	$0.5	$0.237	1.0M

Other Qwen models

Model	Input / 1M	Output / 1M	Blended 3:1	Context
Qwen3 Coder Next	$0.12	$0.8	$0.29	262K
Qwen3.5 397B A17B	$0.55	$3.50	$1.29	262K
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-02-15	$0.26	$1.56	$0.585	1M
Qwen3.5-Flash	$0.065	$0.26	$0.114	1M
Qwen3.5-122B-A10B	$0.26	$2.08	$0.715	262K
Qwen3.5-27B	$0.195	$1.56	$0.536	262K

All Qwen API prices