Qwen 2 1.5 B Instruct vs Qwen 3 30 B: cost comparison
Prices updated 2026-10-28 · computed from live provider data
Short answer: Qwen 2 1.5 B Instruct is cheaper on a
3:1 input/output blend — $0.100 per million tokens versus
$0.150, a 33% difference.
Qwen 3 30 B offers the larger context window at 40,960 tokens, against 32,768 for Qwen 2 1.5 B Instruct.
Head to head
| Qwen 2 1.5 B Instruct | Qwen 3 30 B | |
|---|---|---|
| Input, per 1M tokens | $0.100 | $0.100 |
| Output, per 1M tokens | $0.100 | $0.300 |
| Blended 3:1, per 1M | $0.100 | $0.150 |
| Context window | 32,768 | 40,960 |
| Vendor | together_ai | vercel_ai_gateway |
Monthly cost at real volumes
| Workload (input / output) | Qwen 2 1.5 B Instruct | Qwen 3 30 B |
|---|---|---|
| 1M in / 250K out | $0.125 | $0.175 |
| 10M in / 2.5M out | $1.25 | $1.75 |
| 100M in / 25M out | $12.50 | $17.50 |
Which should you pick?
Pick Qwen 3 30 B when you need the longer context window (40,960 vs 32,768 tokens). Pick Qwen 2 1.5 B Instruct when price per token dominates your workload — high-volume classification, extraction, or batch summarisation.