Model comparison
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs Qwen3.8 Flash: pricing, context and features compared
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3.8 Flash costs $0.15 and $0.47. Here is how they compare on specs, on what real workloads cost, and on which to pick for what, from prices updated daily.
DeepSeek’s and Qwen’s Flash models are two of the cheapest capable open-weight options, often shortlisted for high-volume work where cost matters most.
- Input / 1M
- $0.30
- Output / 1M
- $1.20
- Context
- 1,048,576
- Max output
- Not published
This is DeepSeek’s peak-hour price (01:00–04:00 and 06:00–10:00 UTC on weekdays). At all other times, including weekends and Chinese public holidays, DeepSeek charges half: $0.15 input and $0.60 output per million tokens.
Full DeepSeek V4.1 Flash pricing and specs- Input / 1M
- $0.15
- Output / 1M
- $0.47
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Max output
- 131,072
Open weights: this is the price of OpenRouter’s top-ranked host, which may differ from Qwen’s own API price.
Full Qwen3.8 Flash pricing and specsVerdict
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash or Qwen3.8 Flash: which to pick
Qwen3.8 Flash has the lower list prices: 2.0× cheaper per input token and 2.6× per output token. On our data, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash has the edge for repeated prompts and batch jobs, and Qwen3.8 Flash for very long prompts and non-text inputs. For scale, a support chatbot handling 1,000 requests a day costs about $21.58 a month on DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and $9.51 on Qwen3.8 Flash.
- Lowest bill for typical workloadsEither
- It depends on the shape of the work: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is cheaper for the document summariser; Qwen3.8 Flash for the support chatbot, RAG app and coding agent.
- Very long prompts (whole codebases, long documents)Pick Qwen3.8 Flash
- Both read about 1,000,000 tokens per request. One 800,000-token prompt with a 2,000-token reply costs $0.24 on DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and $0.12 on Qwen3.8 Flash. Neither has a long-prompt surcharge in our data.
- Long replies (reports, large code files)Either
- Qwen3.8 Flash caps a reply at 131,072 tokens; DeepSeek V4.1 Flash publishes no separate cap, so we can’t say which allows longer replies.
- Images, audio, video or files in the promptPick Qwen3.8 Flash
- Qwen3.8 Flash also accepts video, which DeepSeek V4.1 Flash doesn’t.
- Repeated long prompts (prompt caching)Pick DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash bills cached input at $0.006 per 1M (2% of its input price), against $0.016 per 1M (11% of its input price) for Qwen3.8 Flash.
- Overnight batch jobsPick DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash has a batch price ($0.112 in, $0.336 out per 1M); Qwen3.8 Flash has none in our data.
- Self-hosting or choosing your own hostEither
- Both have open weights, so you can run either yourself or buy it from several hosts; prices here are typical hosted prices.
Criteria use only list prices, published limits and the features each provider declares. We don’t rank answer quality; test both models on your own prompts before you commit.
Specs
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs Qwen3.8 Flash side by side
| Spec | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash | Qwen3.8 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | DeepSeek | Qwen |
| Input / 1M tokens | $0.30 | $0.15 (better) |
| Output / 1M tokens | $1.20 | $0.47 (better) |
| Cached input / 1M | $0.006 (better) | $0.016 |
| Batch in / out | $0.112 / $0.336 (better) | No batch price |
| Long-prompt price | None | None |
| Context window | 1,048,576 | 1,000,000 |
| Max output | Not published | 131,072 |
| Accepts | text, images | text, images, video |
| Image input | Yes | Yes |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes |
| Reasoning mode | Yes | Yes |
| Prompt caching | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | Yes | Yes |
| Open weights | Yes | Yes |
| Knowledge cutoff | Not published | Not published |
| First listed | 2026-09-10 | 2026-08-26 |
Prices in US dollars per million tokens. Highlighted: the lower price or larger limit where the difference is over 5%. Features are as declared by each provider’s API; “First listed” is when our data source first listed the model. Long-prompt prices apply to the whole request once the prompt passes the threshold.
Costs
What DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and Qwen3.8 Flash cost for real workloads
| Workload | Tokens in / out | Requests/day | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash / month | Qwen3.8 Flash / month | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Support chatbotCalculator: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash · Qwen3.8 Flash | 1,500 / 400 | 1,000 | $21.5850% cached | $9.5150% cached | Qwen3.8 Flash (2.3×) |
| RAG appCalculator: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash · Qwen3.8 Flash | 6,000 / 500 | 500 | $31.1320% cached | $14.8220% cached | Qwen3.8 Flash (2.1×) |
| Coding agentCalculator: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash · Qwen3.8 Flash | 40,000 / 2,000 | 200 | $30.3780% cached | $16.1380% cached | Qwen3.8 Flash (1.9×) |
| Document summariserCalculator: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash · Qwen3.8 Flash | 8,000 / 600 | 300 | $10.02batch | $13.52no batch price | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (1.4×) |
Each row uses the same token counts for both models and list prices (for an open-weight model, the top-ranked host’s price on OpenRouter), with caching and batch discounts only where the provider publishes them. A month is 365 ÷ 12 days. The support chatbot reads 50% of its prompt from the cache. The RAG app reads 20% of its prompt from the cache. The coding agent reads 80% of its prompt from the cache. The document summariser runs as a batch job where a batch price exists. Open either model in the LLM cost calculator to change any number.
Tokenizers
Are their per-token prices comparable?
Not exactly. Each model splits text into tokens its own way, so the same prompt can be a different number of tokens on DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and Qwen3.8 Flash, and the cheaper per-token price isn’t always the cheaper bill. The last column converts each output price into a price per million English words, which is the fairer comparison for prose.
| Model | Tokenizer | Tokens per 1,000 words | Output per 1M words |
|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek V4.1 Flash | DeepSeek V4Our measurement | 1,145 | $1.37 |
| Qwen3.8 Flash | Qwen 3.8Our measurement | 1,197 | $0.56 |
English prose, measured on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (2026-10-11) or taken from the provider’s published words-per-token figure. Code, JSON and other languages use more tokens per word. Count your own text in the token counter or convert with tokens to words.
FAQ
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs Qwen3.8 Flash questions
Is DeepSeek V4.1 Flash cheaper than Qwen3.8 Flash?
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3.8 Flash costs $0.15 and $0.47. For a support chatbot handling 1,000 requests a day, that is about $21.58 a month on DeepSeek V4.1 Flash against $9.51 on Qwen3.8 Flash, so Qwen3.8 Flash is 2.3× cheaper there. Try your own numbers in the LLM cost calculator.
Which has the bigger context window, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash or Qwen3.8 Flash?
Their context windows are about the same size. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash reads up to 1,048,576 tokens (roughly 786,432 English words) and publishes no separate cap on reply length. Qwen3.8 Flash reads up to 1,000,000 tokens (roughly 750,000 English words) and writes up to 131,072 tokens per reply. The window is shared between your prompt and the reply. Word counts use a rough 0.75 words per token; real ratios depend on the tokenizer.
Is DeepSeek V4.1 Flash or Qwen3.8 Flash better for coding?
We don’t publish benchmark scores, so this page can’t say which writes better code. What we can show is cost: a coding agent re-sending 40,000 tokens of context (80% cached) and writing 2,000 tokens, 200 times a day, costs about $30.37 a month on DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and $16.13 on Qwen3.8 Flash. Both support tool calling. Test both on tasks from your own repository.
Can DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and Qwen3.8 Flash read images?
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash accepts images as well as text. Qwen3.8 Flash accepts images and video as well as text. So both can read screenshots, photos and scanned pages. This is what each provider declares for its API, not a measure of how well it works.
Are DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and Qwen3.8 Flash open source?
Both have open weights: you can download them, run them on your own hardware, or buy them from several hosting providers. The prices on this page are typical hosted prices, so shop around. Check each model’s licence for commercial use, and see the VRAM calculator for the hardware a model needs.
Do DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and Qwen3.8 Flash count tokens the same way?
Not necessarily. Each model splits text into tokens with its own tokenizer, so the same prompt can be a different number of tokens on each, and per-token prices aren’t directly comparable. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash uses about 1,145 tokens per 1,000 English words (our measurement). Qwen3.8 Flash uses about 1,197 tokens per 1,000 English words (our measurement). Count your own text with the token counter or convert with tokens to words.
Explore
Go further
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash pricing, context window and alternatives
- Qwen3.8 Flash pricing, context window and alternatives
- Every DeepSeek and Qwen model in the comparison table
- DeepSeek API pricing for every model
- Qwen API pricing for every model
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