OpenAI o3 vs Qwen3-235B-A22B
Benchmarks, API pricing and specs, head to head. Data updated 2026-06-10.
OpenAI · Apr 2025
OpenAI's dedicated 2025 reasoning model that pioneered thinking-with-images and agentic tool use within chain-of-thought.
Alibaba (Qwen) · Jul 2025
The most popular open general-purpose Qwen: 235B MoE with hybrid thinking, a staple of the 2025 open-source ecosystem.
The verdict
OpenAI o3 wins 2 of the 3 benchmarks these models share, against 1 for Qwen3-235B-A22B. On price the gap is dramatic: Qwen3-235B-A22B works out roughly 9.1x cheaper per blended million tokens. Qwen3-235B-A22B also takes 262K of context versus 200K for OpenAI o3. And Qwen3-235B-A22B is open-weights (Apache 2.0), so it can be self-hosted — a structural advantage if data control or vendor independence matters.
Benchmark head-to-head 2–1
Specs & pricing
| OpenAI o3 | Qwen3-235B-A22B | |
|---|---|---|
| modhub Index | 68.9 | 69.0 |
| Input price / 1M | $2 | $0.22 |
| Output price / 1M | $8 | $0.88 |
| Context window | 200K | 262K |
| Max output | 100K | 33K |
| Open weights | no | yes (Apache 2.0) |
| Reasoning model | yes | yes |
| Multimodal input | text, image | text |
| Knowledge cutoff | May 2024 | Apr 2025 |
| Released | Apr 2025 | Jul 2025 |
| Example monthly cost* | $32.00 | $3.52 |
* 10M input + 1.5M output tokens per month at list prices, no caching. Green = better value on that row.
Frequently asked questions
- Which is better, OpenAI o3 or Qwen3-235B-A22B?
- OpenAI o3 wins 2 of the 3 benchmarks these models share, against 1 for Qwen3-235B-A22B. On price the gap is dramatic: Qwen3-235B-A22B works out roughly 9.1x cheaper per blended million tokens. Qwen3-235B-A22B also takes 262K of context versus 200K for OpenAI o3. And Qwen3-235B-A22B is open-weights (Apache 2.0), so it can be self-hosted — a structural advantage if data control or vendor independence matters.
- Which is cheaper, OpenAI o3 or Qwen3-235B-A22B?
- OpenAI o3 costs $2/$8 per million input/output tokens, while Qwen3-235B-A22B costs $0.22/$0.88. For a typical workload of 10M input and 1.5M output tokens per month, that's $32.00 versus $3.52.
- Which model is better for coding, OpenAI o3 or Qwen3-235B-A22B?
- We don't yet track SWE-bench Verified results for both models; check their individual pages for coding-related scores.