Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

does anyone understand pricing ? On OpenRouter (https://openrouter.ai/qwen/qwen3-coder) you have:

Alibaba Plus: input: $1 to $6 output: $5 to $60

Alibaba OpenSource: input: $1.50 to $4.50 output: $7.50 to $22.50

So it doesn't look that cheap comparing to Kimi k2 or their non coder version (Qwen3 235B A22B 2507).

What's more confusing this "up to" pricing that supposed to can reach $60 for output - with agents it's not that easy to control context.



Found out this on simonw blog [0]: "his is the first model I've seen that sets different prices for four different sizes of input" [1]

It seems now a every expensive model to run with alibaba as provider. You only get this low price for input <32k. For input <256k both gemini 2.5 pro and o3 is cheaper.

[0] https://simonwillison.net/

[1] https://static.simonwillison.net/static/2025/qwen3-coder-plu...


I wanted to start using the Alibaba cloud for a personal project six months ago, couldn't make sense of the pricing and just gave up, so it's not new in my humble experience...




Consider applying for YC's Summer 2026 batch! Applications are open till May 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: