{"name":"Qwen API","tagline":"Alibaba Cloud Model Studio API for text, code, image, audio, video and omni models with OpenAI compatibility.","url":"https://www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/model-studio/what-is-model-studio","category":"models-api","pricing":"paid","price_note":"Qwen3.7 Max ~$1.48/$4.43 per 1M, Qwen3.6 Flash $0.19/$1.13 per 1M, Qwen-Image 2.0 ~$0.04/image; Token Plan and Coding Plan subscriptions available","free_tier":true,"open_source":false,"api":true,"self_host":false,"models_used":["qwen3-8-max"],"model_routing":"locked","verdict":"ship","verdict_text":"The widest Chinese model menu in one API, with open weights and a real international region. Pricing is attractive, but the console still feels built for China-first users, so expect some billing and rate-card friction.","limitations":["The hosted Model Studio API is proprietary; many Qwen weights are open releases available separately.","International vs China pricing diverges; OpenRouter can be cheaper for some models.","Large MoE models are expensive to self-host.","China-region compliance and billing can be hard for non-China users.","Some docs and rate-card pages are JS-rendered or region-locked."],"strengths":["Widest Chinese model menu in one API, with open weights and an international region.","Pricing is attractive next to US frontier labs."],"use_for":["Qwen-family text, code and omni calls with OpenAI-compatible endpoints.","Workloads that can live on Alibaba Cloud's international region."],"skip_when":["China-region billing or compliance is the only path you get.","OpenRouter is already cheaper for the models you need.","You needed OSI-open hosted inference, not a proprietary studio API."],"receipts":["https://www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/model-studio/what-is-model-studio","https://www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/model-studio/model-pricing","https://llmcostcalc.com/cloud/qwen","https://a8gent.com/models/alibaba-qwen"],"affiliate":"none","evidence_tier":"source-verified","momentum":"blueshift","featured":false,"last_verified":"2026-08-19","observed_by":"whysanesanders","slug":"qwen-api","canonical_url":"https://noemium.com/tools/qwen-api/","attribution":"Noemium catalog data is licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). See https://noemium.com/method/ for how entries are verified."}