Billing Overview

QwenAPI charges based on the number of tokens processed — input tokens you send and output tokens the model generates. Pricing varies by model and, for some models, by context window length.

What counts as a token

Tokens are the basic unit of text the model processes. As a rough guide, 1 token ≈ 4 characters in English, or about 0.75 words. Every API call counts both input and output tokens separately.

Input tokens include:

• Your system prompt
• The full conversation history you send
• Any tool definitions or structured inputs

Output tokens include:

• The model's response text
• Tool call arguments generated by the model

Pricing regions

QwenAPI offers two deployment regions:

Region	Description
International	Default. Served from Alibaba Cloud's international infrastructure. Includes free tier.
Global (US/EU)	Lower-latency endpoints in the US and EU. No free tier. Separate pricing.

Your API key is tied to a region. See Model Pricing for full rate tables.

Discounts

Batch API

Submit requests asynchronously via the Batch API and receive 50% off all input and output tokens. Results are returned within 24 hours. Ideal for large-scale processing jobs that don't require real-time responses.

Context Caching

When you send repeated prefixes (e.g., a long system prompt), QwenAPI can cache the prefix and charge a reduced rate on those cached input tokens. Context caching discounts cannot be combined with Batch API pricing.

Free tier

New accounts on the International region receive 1 million free tokens per model for 90 days. This applies to eligible models only. Global (US/EU) accounts have no free quota.

See Free Tier for details on eligible models and what happens when the quota runs out.

Payment methods

QwenAPI accepts:

• Credit and debit cards (Visa, Mastercard, American Express)
• ACH bank transfer (US accounts)
• Wire transfer (Enterprise plans)

Billing is postpaid monthly. You can set spend limits and configure alerts in the dashboard.