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  5. Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)vsQwen3.8 Max (0902)
Updated Sep 2026

Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)vsQwen3.8 Max (0902)

Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) is cheaper than Qwen3.8 Max (0902) at $0.4/M vs $2/M input tokens.

Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) and Qwen3.8 Max (0902) compared across 10 shared prompts
SpecQwen Plus 0728 (thinking)Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Input price$0.4/M tokens$2/M tokens
Output price$4/M tokens$6/M tokens
Context window1.0M tokens1.0M tokens
Weights—Closed
Free API (OpenRouter)NoNo
ReleasedSep 2025Sep 2026
Side by side

Same prompt, both answers

Opening lines from 5 of the 10 prompts both answered. Formatting stripped, words untouched.

Simple 7-Ingredient Recipe

Create a simple recipe for a delicious dish (sweet or savory) using only 7 common pantry ingredients. Include a creative name for the dish…

Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)282 words
Crispy Chickpea Pantry Pasta Sweet or savory? Savory with a zesty kick! Total time: 15 minutes Serves: 2 Why it works: Uses pantry staples to create a crunchy, garlicky, umami-packed meal with zero fresh produce needed. The chickpeas get incredibly crispy, and lemon juice (bottled) adds bright freshness.
Read the full answer
Qwen3.8 Max (0902)230 words
🍯 Midnight Crispy Chickpea Bowl A sweet-savory, crispy rice bowl that comes together faster than delivery. Ingredients (7) # Ingredient Amount 1 Canned chickpeas (drained & patted dry) 1 can (15 oz) 2 Soy sauce 3 tbsp 3 Honey 2 tbsp 4 Garlic (minced) 3 cloves 5 Vegetable oil 2 tbsp 6 Instant or leftover cooked rice 2…
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Beginner's Longevity Plan

Outline a simple, actionable 1-month plan for someone starting their journey towards better health and longevity. Focus on 3 key areas…

Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)854 words
Here’s a simple, actionable 1-month plan designed for absolute beginners. It focuses on diet, movement (exercise), and sleep—the 3 most impactful, science-backed pillars for health and longevity. Each week builds gently on the last, prioritizing tiny, sustainable habits over drastic changes.
Read the full answer
Qwen3.8 Max (0902)536 words
The 30-Day Foundation Plan Core principle: Don't overhaul your life. Layer small wins that compound. 🏃 Area 1: Movement The goal isn't fitness. It's making your body a place you want to live in. Week 1 — Build the trigger Walk 15 minutes daily (same time each day to build the habit) No gym. No gear.
Read the full answer

Debug This Architecture

Here's the architecture for a real-time collaborative document editor (like Google Docs): **System Overview:** - Frontend: React SPA with…

Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)1,224 words
Here's a comprehensive analysis of the architecture's failure modes, race conditions, and bottlenecks, with specific solutions and trade-offs: 1. Sync Strategy: Client Timestamps + Last-Write-Wins (LWW) Failure Mode/Race Condition: Clock Skew: Client clocks are unreliable (e.g., user's laptop time off by minutes).
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Qwen3.8 Max (0902)477 words
Architecture Failure Analysis: Real-Time Collaborative Editor Critical Issues (Data Loss / Correctness) Last-Write-Wins with Client Clocks — Fundamental Data Loss Problem: Client clocks are unreliable. They drift, can be manually set, and differ across timezones.
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Explain Like I'm a Specific Expert

Explain how a large language model (like GPT or Claude) learns and generates text to each of these three audiences: 1. **An experienced…

Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)1,200 words
For the Experienced Software Engineer (Skeptical Builder) Forget "next word prediction" as a simplistic heuristic—it's the emergent consequence of a massively parallel, distributed state machine solving a high-dimensional compression problem.
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Qwen3.8 Max (0902)1,046 words
For the Experienced Software Engineer Think of an LLM as a lossy compression function trained on a massive corpus. During training, you're essentially building a statistical model of "given this sequence of tokens, what's the probability distribution over the next token?"
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Startup Pitch Teardown

Here's a pitch deck summary for a startup called "MindMeld AI": **Slide 1 - Vision:** "We're building the future of human-AI collaboration.…

Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)644 words
Based on a rigorous analysis of neuroscience, market realities, and startup best practices, here are the 3 weakest claims in the MindMeld AI pitch deck, with evidence-backed critiques and concrete fixes: Weakest Claim #1: Slide 1 Vision – "Predicts what you want to type *before you think it*" Why it's weak: Violates…
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Qwen3.8 Max (0902)582 words
The 3 Weakest Claims in the MindMeld AI Pitch The TAM Claim: "$180B" (Slide 4) Why it's weak: This is a textbook case of TAM inflation that immediately undermines credibility with any experienced investor.
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Our Verdict
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)
Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Qwen3.8 Max (0902)

Not enough votes to call it. On the specs, nothing separates them.

Too close to call
API pricing

Cost per 1M tokens

Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)
Input
$0.40
5.0× cheaper
Output
$4.00
1.5× cheaper
Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Input
$2.00
Output
$6.00

Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) is cheaper on both: 5.0× input, 1.5× output.

Where to run it

1 host

Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)

No hosts listed on OpenRouter.

Qwen3.8 Max (0902)1 host
HostInOutContextUptime
Alibaba Cloud$2.00 in·$6.00 out·1M·100% up

Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 22 Sep 2026.

Research

What we learned reading every model

FAQ

Common questions

Both are developed by Qwen but target different use cases. Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) has a 1.0M token context window vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)'s 1.0M. You can compare their actual outputs across 10 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.

It depends on your use case. Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) and Qwen3.8 Max (0902) each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 10 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.

Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) costs $0.4/M input tokens and Qwen3.8 Max (0902) costs $2/M input tokens. Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) is $1.60/M cheaper per input. Check their side-by-side outputs on Rival to see if the price difference is justified by quality.

This page shows a side-by-side comparison of Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) and Qwen3.8 Max (0902) across shared challenges. You can vote on which model produced the better output in a blind duel. Browsing and voting are free. No account is needed to look; signing in only saves your votes and likes.

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Model pages

Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) logo
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)37 outputs, specs and price
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) logo
Qwen3.8 Max (0902)10 outputs, specs and price
Rival
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