# GPT-6.1 Sol vs Qwen3.8-Flash

Qwen3.8-Flash is the cheaper of the 2: for the same tokens, 3 read for each 1 written, GPT-6.1 Sol costs 17 times as much. Below are both price lists, what 8 everyday jobs cost a month on each, and how many tokens the same text takes on each, which can change the answer.

- Page, with a calculator for your own job: https://tecyfy.com/prices/compare/gpt-6-1-sol-vs-qwen3-8-flash
- Makers: GPT-6.1 Sol from OpenAI, Qwen3.8-Flash from Alibaba

## Price per million tokens, in US dollars

| | GPT-6.1 Sol | Qwen3.8-Flash |
| --- | --: | --: |
| Input | $2 | $0.15 |
| Cached input | $0.10 | $0.016 |
| Cache write | $2.50 | not listed |
| Output | $10 | $0.47 |
| Blend, 3 read for each 1 written | $4 | $0.23 |
| Batch input | $1 | not listed |
| Batch output | $5 | not listed |
| Long prompt input (above 272K on GPT-6.1 Sol) | $4 | $0.15 |
| Long prompt output | $15 | $0.47 |
| Context window, tokens | 1.05M | not listed |
| Capability score (Epoch Capabilities Index; GPT-5 is 150) | 166 | not listed |
| Longest answer, tokens | 128K | not listed |

## The same text, counted by each maker

Our lesson "How AI writes" (https://tecyfy.com/learn/how-ai-works/how-ai-writes), about 1,700 words of English:

- GPT-6.1 Sol: about 2,100 tokens. GPT-5.6 is counted with o200k_base, the tokenizer OpenAI publishes for it, so its count is exact. OpenAI has not published the tokenizer of GPT-6, so its count is the same o200k_base figure, marked as about.
- Qwen3.8-Flash: about 2,100 tokens. Counted with the tokenizer Alibaba publishes with its open Qwen3.8 models. Alibaba does not say its API models use the same one, so the count is marked as about.

## What 8 everyday jobs cost a month on each

Each job at its usual runs a day, for 30 days, at the standard price.

| Job | Tokens in, out, runs a day | GPT-6.1 Sol | Qwen3.8-Flash |
| --- | --- | --: | --: |
| A chat question | 300, 500, 100 | $16.80 | 84 cents |
| A hard question, with thinking | 300, 1,400, 100 | $43.80 | $2.11 |
| A long report, summarised | 60,000, 2,000, 20 | $84.00 | $5.96 |
| A 40-turn agent task | 2,800,000, 40,000, 10 | $364 | $30.34 |
| A support bot's reply | 4,000, 300, 2,000 | $432 | $28.38 |
| Sort a message into a category | 250, 5, 50,000 | $825 | $59.77 |
| Read an invoice into fields | 1,500, 250, 1,000 | $165 | $10.27 |
| Review a pull request | 25,000, 4,500, 50 | $143 | $8.80 |

## Questions

### Which is cheaper, GPT-6.1 Sol or Qwen3.8-Flash?

Qwen3.8-Flash is cheaper: $0.15 per million tokens read and $0.47 per million written, against $2 and $10 on GPT-6.1 Sol. On a mix of 3 tokens read for each 1 written, GPT-6.1 Sol costs 17 times as much.

### Which is better, GPT-6.1 Sol or Qwen3.8-Flash?

GPT-6.1 Sol scores 166 on the Epoch Capabilities Index, an independent score from Epoch AI that combines over 50 benchmarks (GPT-5 is 150). Qwen3.8-Flash has no independent score yet, so the only fair test is to run the same 10 tasks on both.

### What does a support bot cost a month on GPT-6.1 Sol and Qwen3.8-Flash?

At 2,000 replies a day, each reading 4,000 tokens (50 percent of them from cache) and writing 300, it costs $432 a month on GPT-6.1 Sol and $28.38 on Qwen3.8-Flash: GPT-6.1 Sol costs 15 times as much for this job.

### What does an AI agent task cost on GPT-6.1 Sol and Qwen3.8-Flash?

One 40-turn task that reads 2,800,000 tokens in all, 90 percent of them from cache, and writes 40,000, costs $1.21 on GPT-6.1 Sol and 10 cents on Qwen3.8-Flash. At 10 tasks a day that is $364 and $30.34 a month.

### Does the same text take the same number of tokens on GPT-6.1 Sol and Qwen3.8-Flash?

No. Our lesson "How AI writes", 1,700 words long, is about 2,100 tokens on GPT-6.1 Sol and about 2,100 on Qwen3.8-Flash. Each maker cuts text its own way, and every extra token is paid for at the model's price.

### Can I pay less on GPT-6.1 Sol and Qwen3.8-Flash for work that can wait?

On GPT-6.1 Sol only: with a batch, where you collect the answers later, it costs $1 per million tokens read and $5 written. Alibaba's price page lists no batch price for Qwen3.8-Flash.

## Sources

- [OpenAI: API prices](https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing)
- [Alibaba: API prices](https://www.qwencloud.com/pricing/api)
- [Epoch Capabilities Index, by Epoch AI (CC BY 4.0)](https://epoch.ai/benchmarks/eci)

## Other comparisons

- [GPT-6.1 Sol vs GPT-6 Sol](https://tecyfy.com/prices/compare/gpt-6-1-sol-vs-gpt-6-sol.md)
- [GPT-5.6 Sol vs GPT-6.1 Sol](https://tecyfy.com/prices/compare/gpt-5-6-sol-vs-gpt-6-1-sol.md)
- [GPT-5.6 Terra vs GPT-6.1 Sol](https://tecyfy.com/prices/compare/gpt-5-6-terra-vs-gpt-6-1-sol.md)
- [GPT-5.6 Luna vs GPT-6.1 Sol](https://tecyfy.com/prices/compare/gpt-5-6-luna-vs-gpt-6-1-sol.md)
- [GPT-5.5 vs GPT-6.1 Sol](https://tecyfy.com/prices/compare/gpt-5-5-vs-gpt-6-1-sol.md)
- [GPT-5.5 pro vs GPT-6.1 Sol](https://tecyfy.com/prices/compare/gpt-5-5-pro-vs-gpt-6-1-sol.md)