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Qwen 3.8 Max vs DeepSeek V4 Pro: API Cost Comparison

DeepSeek V4 Pro is the cheaper tier across the board: $1.32/$3.96 peak versus Qwen's $2.00/$6.00, with a deeper cache discount (96.7% vs 90%) and an off-peak lever instead of batch. Pick Qwen only for its 50% batch lane or Alibaba ecosystem.

Qwen 3.8 Max and DeepSeek V4 Pro are the two 2026 Chinese flagships most buyers shortlist against the US labs. DeepSeek undercuts Qwen by roughly 34% on both rows at peak, and halves the bill entirely for off-peak jobs.

By TechCompare · Updated

Input tokens
100,000
per request
Output tokens
5,000
per request
Volume
100 / monthly
Standard API

Calculator

Cost Comparison

Based on 100,000 input tokens (50% cached), 5,000 output tokens, and 100 requests.

Open full calculator to adjust tokens, caching, or add other models

How this is calculated

Qwen 3.8 Max is $2.00 per million input and $6.00 per million output with a 90% cache discount ($0.20/M) and a 50% batch tier. DeepSeek V4 Pro (0813) is $1.32/$3.96 at peak with a 96.7% cache discount ($0.044/M) and flat 50% off-peak pricing. Both run 1M context.

Verdict

Run the same 100K + 5K call: Qwen 3.8 Max costs $0.23, DeepSeek V4 Pro costs $0.15 peak and $0.08 off-peak. At 50M input and 5M output monthly the gap is $130 on Qwen versus $86 peak or $43 off-peak on DeepSeek. Cache-hit input is the separator at scale: $0.044/M on DeepSeek against $0.20/M on Qwen means a stable-prompt agent loop pays 4.5x more on Qwen's input side. Qwen's one real win is the published 50% batch tier, which DeepSeek substitutes with its off-peak schedule - pick whichever lever matches your latency profile.

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Frequently asked questions

Which is cheaper, Qwen 3.8 Max or DeepSeek V4 Pro?
DeepSeek V4 Pro by 34% at peak ($1.32/$3.96 vs $2.00/$6.00) and by roughly two-thirds off-peak ($0.66/$1.98). Cached input also favors DeepSeek at $0.044/M versus $0.20/M. Qwen only closes the gap with its 50% batch tier on latency-insensitive jobs.
Can I use Qwen's cache and batch discounts together?
No - Alibaba's billing docs say context cache and batch discounts are mutually exclusive. DeepSeek has no such restriction because its levers are cache discount plus time-of-day pricing, which stack naturally.
Do both models support 1M context?
Yes. Qwen 3.8 Max and DeepSeek V4 Pro both ship 1M-token context windows. DeepSeek additionally supports up to 384K max output tokens, which matters for long-form generation and agent trajectory dumps.

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