High-volume, cost-sensitive work
Choose Qwen3.8 Max Prime
Qwen3.8 Max Prime costs 25% less on a typical mix of three input tokens for every output token ($6.00 against $8.00 per million tokens).
GPT-5.6 Sol vs Qwen3.8 Max Prime: price, context and capabilities
Choose GPT-5.6 Sol for reused prompts and documents (RAG, agents). Choose Qwen3.8 Max Prime for high-volume, cost-sensitive work, writing and code generation and the latest release.
In short
- Qwen3.8 Max Prime is 25% cheaper than GPT-5.6 Sol at the headline price ($6.00 / 1M tokens vs $8.00 / 1M tokens).
- GPT-5.6 Sol reads more per request: 1.05M tokens against 1M.
- Qwen3.8 Max Prime is the newer model (Sep 23, 2026, against Jul 9, 2026).
- Only GPT-5.6 Sol offers batch api.
Which should you choose?
Each answer below comes straight from the published prices, specifications and independent benchmark results.
Writing and code generation
Choose Qwen3.8 Max Prime
Qwen3.8 Max Prime charges $12.00 per million output tokens, against $20.00 for GPT-5.6 Sol. Output dominates the bill when answers are long.
Reused prompts and documents (RAG, agents)
Choose GPT-5.6 Sol
GPT-5.6 Sol charges $0.40 per million cached input tokens, against $0.50 for Qwen3.8 Max Prime.
Latest release
Choose Qwen3.8 Max Prime
Qwen3.8 Max Prime is the newer release (Sep 23, 2026, against Jul 9, 2026 for GPT-5.6 Sol).
Monthly cost at three volumes
| Volume | GPT-5.6 Sol | Qwen3.8 Max Prime | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prototype: 1M input, 250K output tokens | $9.00 | $7.00 | Qwen3.8 Max Prime, $2.00 less |
| Production: 20M input, 5M output tokens | $180.00 | $140.00 | Qwen3.8 Max Prime, $40.00 less |
| Scale: 500M input, 100M output tokens | $4,000 | $3,200 | Qwen3.8 Max Prime, $800.00 less |
Standard rates, without caching or batch discounts. Volumes are per month.
Specifications side by side
| GPT-5.6 Sol | Qwen3.8 Max Prime | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | Alibaba Cloud (Qwen) |
| Category | Language models | Language models |
| Status | Generally available | Generally available |
| Headline price | $8.00 / 1M tokens | $6.00 / 1M tokens |
| Input | $4.00 / 1M tokens | $4.00 / 1M tokens |
| Output | $20.00 / 1M tokens | $12.00 / 1M tokens |
| Cached input | $0.40 / 1M tokens | $0.50 / 1M tokens |
| Context window | 1.05M | 1M |
| Max output | 128k | 131k |
| Released | Jul 9, 2026 | Sep 23, 2026 |
| Knowledge cutoff | February 2026 | No data |
| Licence | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Capabilities | Vision, Reasoning, Tool calling, Structured output, Prompt caching, Batch API | Vision, Reasoning, Tool calling, Structured output, Prompt caching |
| API model id | gpt-5.6-sol | qwen3.8-max-prime |
Benchmarks side by side
Leader in bold.
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Sol | Qwen3.8 Max Prime |
|---|---|---|
| Intelligence Index | 47 | No data |
| Terminal-Bench Hard | 65.9% | No data |
| SciCode | 57.1% | No data |
| GPQA Diamond | 94.1% | No data |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 49.5% | No data |
| IFBench (instruction following) | 72.7% | No data |
| τ²-Bench (agentic tool use) | 85.1% | No data |
| MMMU-Pro (visual reasoning) | 83.4% | No data |
| Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 84% | No data |
Independent evaluations by Artificial Analysis, run the same way for every model, at the reasoning setting shown. Percentages unless marked as an index.
Frequently asked questions
Should I choose GPT-5.6 Sol or Qwen3.8 Max Prime?
Choose GPT-5.6 Sol for reused prompts and documents (RAG, agents). Choose Qwen3.8 Max Prime for high-volume, cost-sensitive work, writing and code generation and the latest release.
Which is cheaper, GPT-5.6 Sol or Qwen3.8 Max Prime?
Qwen3.8 Max Prime is 25% cheaper than GPT-5.6 Sol at the headline price ($6.00 / 1M tokens vs $8.00 / 1M tokens).
Which has the larger context window, GPT-5.6 Sol or Qwen3.8 Max Prime?
GPT-5.6 Sol reads more per request: 1.05M tokens against 1M.
What is the difference between GPT-5.6 Sol and Qwen3.8 Max Prime?
GPT-5.6 Sol is made by OpenAI and Qwen3.8 Max Prime by Alibaba Cloud (Qwen). Qwen3.8 Max Prime is 25% cheaper than GPT-5.6 Sol at the headline price ($6.00 / 1M tokens vs $8.00 / 1M tokens). GPT-5.6 Sol reads more per request: 1.05M tokens against 1M. Qwen3.8 Max Prime is the newer model (Sep 23, 2026, against Jul 9, 2026). Only GPT-5.6 Sol offers batch api.
How much do GPT-5.6 Sol and Qwen3.8 Max Prime cost per month?
At 20 million input and 5 million output tokens a month, GPT-5.6 Sol costs $180.00 and Qwen3.8 Max Prime costs $140.00, at standard rates.
Which is newer, GPT-5.6 Sol or Qwen3.8 Max Prime?
Qwen3.8 Max Prime was released on Sep 23, 2026 and GPT-5.6 Sol on Jul 9, 2026.