# Qwen Plus vs Qwen3 8B

> Qwen Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.1 to 33.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 1.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen Plus's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/qwen-plus-vs-qwen3-8b
- Last updated: 2026-10-11
- Shared benchmarks: 4

## Summary

- They share 4 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen Plus scores higher in 3 categories and Qwen3 8B in 2 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Qwen Plus leads 28.4 to 16.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 17.8% for Qwen Plus and 56.1% for Qwen3 8B.
- Qwen3 8B is cheaper at $0.18 / $0.70 per million input/output tokens, against $0.40 / $1.20 for Qwen Plus.
- Qwen Plus accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
- Qwen3 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 37.1 | 33.7 |
| Rank | 210 | 238 |
| Context | 1M | 131K |
| Input $/M | $0.40 | $0.18 |
| Output $/M | $1.20 | $0.70 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Qwen Plus: 38.9 (#167)
- Qwen3 8B: 34.0 (#248)

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | — | 22.6% |
| LMArena Coding | 1328 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Qwen Plus: —
- Qwen3 8B: 30.2 (#78)

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 42.6% |

## Reasoning

- Qwen Plus: 28.4 (#107)
- Qwen3 8B: 16.6 (#303)

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| DTBench | 81.1% | 59.7% |
| LMCA | 24% | 8.8% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 63.3% | — |
| CritPt | — | 0% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 5% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1317 | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 136.17 |

## Math

- Qwen Plus: 23.3 (#271)
- Qwen3 8B: 34.9 (#191)

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 17.8% | 56.1% |
| LMArena Math | 1326 | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 65.3% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 1.7% | — |

## Knowledge

- Qwen Plus: 27.4 (#251)
- Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#173)

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 48.1% | 56.8% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 4.8% |
| LMArena Expert | 1328 | — |

## Multilingual

- Qwen Plus: 45.1 (#175)
- Qwen3 8B: —

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1310 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1347 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1251 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1323 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Qwen Plus: 68.8 (#181)
- Qwen3 8B: —

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1303 | — |

## Long Context

- Qwen Plus: 40.3 (#158)
- Qwen3 8B: 37.9 (#210)

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 62.1% |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1324 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Qwen Plus: 52.2 (#176)
- Qwen3 8B: —

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1326 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1293 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1336 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Qwen Plus better than Qwen3 8B?

Qwen Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.1 to 33.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 1.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen Plus's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Qwen Plus or Qwen3 8B?

Qwen3 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.18 per million input tokens and $0.70 per million output tokens; Qwen Plus lists at $0.40 and $1.20.

### Is Qwen Plus or Qwen3 8B better for coding?

Qwen Plus scores higher on coding benchmarks: 38.9 versus 34.0 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen Plus does, with 1M tokens against 131K.

### How many benchmarks do Qwen Plus and Qwen3 8B share?

4 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen Plus has 20 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.