Qwen3 8B — Specifications
| Developer | Alibaba |
|---|---|
| Type | LLM (dense) |
| Modality | Text → Text |
| Parameters | 8B |
| Context window | 128K |
| Max output | — |
| License | Apache 2.0 (open) |
| Open weights | Yes |
| Released | 2025 |
| Input price | $0.04 /1M |
| Output price | $0.14 /1M |
| API providers | Alibaba, OpenRouter, Ollama |
Run it locally
| VRAM (4-bit) | ~5 GB |
|---|---|
| Minimum GPU | RTX 3060 8GB / any 8GB GPU |
What is Qwen3 8B?
Qwen3 8B is a small, fast dense model from the Qwen3 family — Apache 2.0, a 128K context,
and about 5 GB of VRAM at 4-bit, which fits an RTX 3060 8GB or any 8 GB card. Hosted pricing
is $0.04 in / $0.14 out per million tokens.
Among models that fit an 8 GB GPU, it is one of the strongest available, and the 128K
context is what separates it from the older generation in the same bracket — Mistral 7B, its
closest historical equivalent, tops out at 32K. That difference decides whether a local
assistant can hold a real document or only a few pages. Apache 2.0 licensing means no
conditions to clear with legal, and the small footprint leaves room on the card for a
generous context or a second process. Treat it as the entry point to local inference: it will
run on hardware you almost certainly already have, and if it proves the use case, Qwen3 14B
and 32B are drop-in upgrades within the same family and licence as your hardware
allows.
Qwen3 8B pricing: API cost per 1M tokens
| Input (per 1M tokens) | $0.0400 |
|---|---|
| Output (per 1M tokens) | $0.140 |
| Output/input ratio | 3.5× |
| Blended (4:1 in:out) | $0.0600 per 1M tokens |
What Qwen3 8B costs per month
Real monthly spend at a 4:1 input-to-output mix — the ratio a typical chat or RAG workload actually produces.
| Workload | Tokens / month | Cost / month |
|---|---|---|
| Side project | 1M in / 0.25M out | $0.08 |
| Small team | 20M in / 5M out | $1.50 |
| Production | 200M in / 50M out | $15 |
Run your own numbers in the AI API cost calculator.
Cheaper alternatives to Qwen3 8B
| Model | Blended $/1M | You save |
|---|---|---|
| Mistral 7B open | $0.0220 | 63% cheaper |
| Llama 3.1 8B open | $0.0220 | 63% cheaper |
| Mistral NeMo 12B open | $0.0240 | 60% cheaper |
Self-host or pay the API?
Qwen3 8B is open-weight, so you can run it yourself. It needs ~5 GB of VRAM at 4-bit (RTX 3060 8GB / any 8GB GPU). Self-hosting only beats the API once your volume is high enough to keep that hardware busy — the self-hosting vs API calculator works out the break-even point for your token volume.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Qwen3 8B cost per 1M tokens?
Qwen3 8B costs $0.0400 per 1M input tokens and $0.140 per 1M output tokens. At a typical 4:1 input-to-output mix that blends to about $0.0600 per 1M tokens.
How much does Qwen3 8B cost per month?
A small-team workload of 20M input and 5M output tokens a month costs about $1.50 on Qwen3 8B. A side project (1M in / 0.25M out) costs roughly $0.08.
What is a cheaper alternative to Qwen3 8B?
Mistral 7B is the strongest cheaper option in our database at $0.0220 per 1M blended — about 63% less than Qwen3 8B. It is also open-weight, so self-hosting is an option.
Can I run Qwen3 8B locally?
Yes. Qwen3 8B is open-weight and needs about ~5 GB of VRAM at 4-bit quantisation (RTX 3060 8GB / any 8GB GPU).
Why does Qwen3 8B charge more for output than input?
Output tokens are generated one at a time and cannot be batched the way a prompt can, so they cost the provider more to serve. Qwen3 8B charges 3.5× more for output, which is why prompt-heavy workloads are far cheaper to run than generation-heavy ones.
Prices are the published list rates for the model's primary API and are reviewed as providers change them. Volume, batch and cached-input discounts are not included. Compare every model side by side in the AI models database or the LLM leaderboard.
