Which is cheaper, Qwen 3 Coder or GPT-5?

Qwen 3 Coder is cheaper at the input + output rate combined: $2.00 versus $11.25 per million tokens.

Which has higher quality, Qwen 3 Coder or GPT-5?

GPT-5 has the higher AA Intelligence Index score: 91 versus 82.

Can I switch between Qwen 3 Coder and GPT-5 via one API?

Both Qwen 3 Coder and GPT-5 are accessible through OpenRouter's unified gateway, which lets you switch models with one API key. Phase 2 of AIpricly will add scenario-routed automatic primary + fallback chains.

Qwen 3 Coder vs GPT-5

Side-by-side pricing, capabilities, real-world cost across common scenarios, and our editorial pick.

Add a modelUp to 4 models can be compared

all prices in USD per 1M tokens

OVERALL WINNER

Qwen 3 Coder

Alibaba · released 2026-03-01

Quality (AA Index)82

Input price$0.40

Output price$1.60

Context256K

Throughput180 tok/s

P50 latency0.6s

View full pricing

GPT-5

OpenAI · released 2026-01-15

Quality (AA Index)91

Input price$1.25

Output price$10.00

Context400K

Throughput120 tok/s

P50 latency0.7s

View full pricing

Try Qwen 3 Coder on OpenRouter Try GPT-5 on OpenRouter

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Head-to-head specs

Green column = winner per metric

Metric	Qwen 3 Coder	GPT-5	Verdict
Input price /1M tokens	$0.40	$1.25	Qwen 3 Coder −68%
Output price /1M tokens	$1.60	$10.00	Qwen 3 Coder −84%
Context window max input length	256K	400K	GPT-5 +1.6×
AA Quality AA Intelligence Index (0–100)	82	91	GPT-5 +9pt
Arena Elo LMArena human-pref Elo (800–2000)	—	—	Tied
Throughput tokens per second	180	120	Qwen 3 Coder +50%
P50 latency first token	0.6s	0.7s	Qwen 3 Coder −14%
Vision multimodal	—
Function calling tool use			Tied
Reasoning mode chain-of-thought	—

Monthly cost across common scenarios

Default usage assumptions

Scenario	Qwen 3 Coder	GPT-5
customer support 1000K req · 600/180 tok	$528	$2.5K
chat with docs 300K req · 4000/300 tok	$624	$2.4K
code generation 500K req · 2000/500 tok	$800	$3.8K
voice assistant 600K req · 800/200 tok	$384	$1.8K

Our pick

For most workloads, choose Qwen 3 Coder.

68% cheaper input price, which compounds at scale
50% faster throughput — matters for streaming UX and voice agents

Choose GPT-5 instead if: Best across-the-board quality but the most expensive token rate in the table; pick GPT-5 when reasoning depth or function-calling reliability outranks per-million-token spend.

Read our deep analysis

Why pick? Use both with smart routing

Phase 2 · gateway with fallback chain

Set Qwen 3 Coder as primary, GPT-5 as fallback. One key, one bill, automatic failover when Qwen 3 Coder errors.

PHASE 2 PREVIEW · gateway not live yetThis endpoint does not exist yet. The gateway is in Phase 2 — what you see below is a design preview of the planned interface, not a live API. We will email subscribers when it launches.

Preview the planned API call

$ curl https://api.aipricly.com/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AIPC_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "routing": {
      "primary": "alibaba/qwen-3-coder",
      "fallback": ["openai/gpt-5"]
    },
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "..."}]
  }'