GPT-5 mini vs Qwen Turbo: cost
For a typical support chatbot, Qwen Turbo is about 8.4× cheaper than GPT-5 mini ($16.68 vs $141 per month). Price is only one factor: test both on your own prompts before switching.
| GPT-5 mini | Qwen Turbo | |
|---|---|---|
| Input /1M | $0.25 | $0.05 |
| Output /1M | $2.00 | $0.20 |
| Output (thinking) | — | $0.50 |
| Cached input /1M | $0.025 | $0.01 |
| Batch input /1M | $0.125 | $0.025 |
| Batch output /1M | $1.00 | $0.10 |
| Context window | 400,000 | 131,072 |
| Max input | 272,000 | 98,304 |
| Max output | 128,000 | 16,384 |
Monthly cost by workload
| Scenario (per month) | GPT-5 mini | Qwen Turbo |
|---|---|---|
| Customer support chatbot 5,000 req/day · 1,200 in · 400 out · cache 60% | $141 | $16.68 |
| RAG over documents 2,000 req/day · 8,000 in · 600 out · cache 30% | $160 | $25.44 |
| Coding agent 1,500 req/day · 25,000 in · 2,000 out · cache 80% | $259 | $38.25 |
| Deep reasoning 800 req/day · 3,000 in · 6,000 out · cache 20% | $303 | $31.82 |
| Batch processing 50,000 req/day · 1,500 in · 150 out · batch | $506 | $78.75 |