Qwen3.8 Max vs DeepSeek V4 Pro
Two Chinese frontier APIs that buyers weigh against each other, both far cheaper than the US flagships. Both list prices from the makers’ own pages, and what three everyday jobs cost on each.
US dollars, standard rate, shortest context band. Price only: this page does not rank quality.
- Qwen3.8 Max
- $8.40
- DeepSeek V4 Pro
- $5.54
- Qwen3.8 Max, per M tokens
- $2 / $6
- DeepSeek V4 Pro, per M tokens
- $1.32 / $3.96
3,000 tokens in and 400 out each, at list price.
Per million tokens, Qwen3.8 Max costs $2 in and $6 out; DeepSeek V4 Pro costs $1.32 in and $3.96 out. 1,000 support replies cost $8.40 on Qwen3.8 Max and $5.54 on DeepSeek V4 Pro, so Qwen3.8 Max costs 52% more. Both read up to 1M tokens at once.
Side by side
Each maker’s published rate for its standard tier. Cached input is what a repeated prompt prefix costs once the provider has stored it.
| Fact | Qwen3.8 Max | DeepSeek V4 Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Alibaba (Qwen) | DeepSeek |
| Tier | Flagships | Flagships |
| Input, per M tokens | $2.00 | $1.32 |
| Output, per M tokens | $6.00 | $3.96 |
| Cached input | Not published | $0.044 |
| Context window | 1M | 1M |
| Released | Not published | 13 Aug 2026 |
| Weights | Closed | Open |
What a job costs on each
1,000 runs of each job at the two list prices. The gap moves from job to job because the models price input, output and cached context differently.
| Job | Qwen3.8 Max | DeepSeek V4 Pro | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Support reply3,000 in, 400 out. | $8.40 | $5.54 | DeepSeek V4 Pro, 34% less |
| Document summary25,000 in, 1,000 out. | $56.00 | $36.96 | DeepSeek V4 Pro, 34% less |
| Agent task80,000 in (70,000 cached), 3,000 out. | $178 | $28.16 | DeepSeek V4 Pro, 84% less |
The token counts are ours, chosen to look like real work; the prices are the makers’. A model with no published cache price bills the agent task’s repeated context at its full input rate.
The small print
What each base rate leaves out, from the makers’ own pages: surcharges, discounts, promotions and cache pricing.
- Qwen3.8 Max
- International (Singapore) deployment, one tier up to 1M input tokens. Cache: implicit and explicit caching are discounted (explicit cache hits 10% of input, creation 125%), no single cached price recorded. Context taken from the top pricing tier (1M). Listed as a commercial model; Alibaba lists a separate open-source qwen3.8-2.4t-a95b. Alibaba (Qwen)’s pricing page
- DeepSeek V4 Pro
- Peak-hour rate, recorded as the list price. Off-peak (all hours outside 01:00-04:00 and 06:00-10:00 UTC on weekdays) is half: $0.66 / $1.98, cache hit $0.022. Peak and off-peak pricing started 2026-08-16. API name deepseek-v4-pro serves DeepSeek-V4-Pro-0813 (V4 first shipped 2026-04-24). Max output 384K. DeepSeek’s pricing page
Other comparisons
Every head to head on the list that involves Qwen3.8 Max or DeepSeek V4 Pro.
Run both for a quarter of list price
AIGROW API credit covers Qwen3.8 Max and DeepSeek V4 Pro and is metered at the list prices above: $25 buys $100 of usage.
Prices checked 22 September 2026