XAI VS ALIBABA
Grok 4.5 vs Qwen3.5 Plus
Qwen3.5 Plus is about 3.3x cheaper than Grok 4.5 on a blended 3:1 input:output rate — the same 10K-in/2K-out request costs $0.0088 vs $0.032. Qwen3.5 Plus has the larger context window (1,000,000 vs 500,000 tokens).
Pricing verified
API pricing per 1M tokens
| Model | Input / 1M tokens | Output / 1M tokens | Blended (3:1 mix) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grok 4.5 | $2.00 | $6.00 | $3.00 |
| Qwen3.5 Plus | $0.40 | $2.40 | $0.90 |
Rates from official xAI pricing and official Alibaba pricing, checked 2026-08-11.
What a real workload costs
Example: one request with 10,000 input tokens and 2,000 output tokens, then that request at 100,000 runs per month.
| Model | Per request (10K in / 2K out) | Per month (100K requests) | Monthly delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grok 4.5 | $0.032 | $3,200 | +$2,320 |
| Qwen3.5 Plus | $0.0088 | $880 | — |
Model your own prompt sizes and volumes in the token cost analyzer, or check caching savings with the prompt caching calculator.
Specs side by side
| Spec | Grok 4.5 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | xAI | Alibaba |
| Context window | 500,000 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens |
| Model class | Reasoning | General text |
| Tokenizer | Proprietary (counts estimated) | Proprietary (counts estimated) |
Count tokens for each model on its own page: Grok 4.5 token counter and Qwen3.5 Plus token counter. All xAI models are on the Grok Token Counter. All Alibaba models are on the Qwen Token Counter.
FAQ
Grok 4.5 vs Qwen3.5 Plus FAQ
Which is cheaper, Grok 4.5 or Qwen3.5 Plus?
Qwen3.5 Plus is cheaper. At rates checked 2026-08-11, Grok 4.5 costs $2.00 input / $6.00 output per 1M tokens, while Qwen3.5 Plus costs $0.40 input / $2.40 output — about a 3.3x difference on a typical 3:1 input-heavy workload.
How much does a real request cost on Grok 4.5 vs Qwen3.5 Plus?
A request with 10,000 input tokens and 2,000 output tokens costs about $0.032 on Grok 4.5 and $0.0088 on Qwen3.5 Plus. At 100,000 such requests per month that is $3,200 vs $880 — a difference of $2,320 per month.
Which has the bigger context window, Grok 4.5 or Qwen3.5 Plus?
Qwen3.5 Plus. It supports 1,000,000 tokens of context versus 500,000 tokens — roughly 750,000 English words in one request.
Do Grok 4.5 and Qwen3.5 Plus count tokens the same way?
Not exactly. Grok 4.5 uses a proprietary tokenizer (counts are estimates) and Qwen3.5 Plus uses a proprietary tokenizer (counts are estimates). The same prompt will tokenize differently, which shifts effective cost per word.