Model comparison

GPT-4.1 Mini vs Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct

OpenAI's GPT-4.1 Mini against Qwen's Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct: vendor list prices, limits, abilities and the Artificial Analysis indexes side by side - and what OpenSmartRoute does when both are available.

CheaperQwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct

Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct lists at $0.632 per million tokens blended against $0.7 for GPT-4.1 Mini.

Intelligence: levelEven

Intelligence index 10 against 10: within a point of each other.

Longer contextGPT-4.1 Mini

GPT-4.1 Mini reads 1.0M tokens at once, Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct 262k.

Abilities differQwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct

only Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct offers open weights.

NewerQwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct

Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct was released about 5 months later.

Side by side

Vendor list prices per million tokens and published limits; indexes are Artificial Analysis composites (0-100).

Specification	GPT-4.1 Mini	Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct
Input price / 1M tokens	$0.40	$0.21
Output price / 1M tokens	$1.60	$1.90
Blended (3 in : 1 out)	$0.70	$0.63
Cached input / 1M	$0.10	$0.10
Context window	1.0M	262K
Max output	33K	33K
Input	image, text, file	text, image
Output	text	text
Tool calls
Structured output
Reasoning
Open weights
Intelligence index	10	10
Coding index	20	-
Agentic index	-	-
Released	Apr 14, 2025	Sep 23, 2025
Available on this deployment

What a month costs

List price times tokens for three typical workloads; your mix of input and output decides which model's pricing suits you.

Workload	GPT-4.1 Mini	Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct	Difference
Support chat20M tokens in, 5M out a month - a help desk answering a few thousand conversations.	$16.00	$13.70	$2.30 less on Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct
Document summaries100M in, 5M out - long inputs, short answers.	$48.00	$30.50	$17.50 less on Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct
Coding assistant60M in, 20M out - a team's editor assistant, output-heavy.	$56.00	$50.60	$5.40 less on Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct

What the router does with the pair

The two measure the same on the intelligence index, so the router treats them as peers and lets price, observed latency and your outcomes decide: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct wins on cost, and a few bad outcomes on either move the next requests to the other.

Price a request Playground

yaml

# targets.yaml - both models as routing targets (metadata.model links each to the catalogue entry)
targets:
  - { id: qwen3-vl-235b-a22b-instruct, kind: llm, metadata: { model: qwen/qwen3-vl-235b-a22b-instruct } }
  - { id: gpt-4.1-mini, kind: llm, metadata: { model: openai/gpt-4.1-mini } }

# rules.yaml - the cheaper model by default, the stronger one when the request is hard
rules:
  - name: simple-requests-stay-cheap
    when: { max_complexity: 0.45 }
    prefer: [qwen3-vl-235b-a22b-instruct]
    weight: 0.8
  - name: hard-requests-escalate
    when: { min_complexity: 0.45 }
    prefer: [gpt-4.1-mini]
    weight: 0.8

Frequently asked

Is GPT-4.1 Mini cheaper than Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct?: No. GPT-4.1 Mini lists at $0.40 in / $1.60 out per million tokens, Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct at $0.21 in / $1.90 out; blended, Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct is the cheaper one.
Which is better, GPT-4.1 Mini or Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct?: On the Artificial Analysis intelligence index GPT-4.1 Mini scores higher (10 against 10). "Better" depends on the task: the coding and agentic indexes below and the abilities row may point the other way for your requests.
Which has the longer context window?: GPT-4.1 Mini - 1.0M tokens against 262K.
Can I use GPT-4.1 Mini and Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct together?: Yes. Declare both as targets and OpenSmartRoute picks one per request on quality for the task, price and your rules - the cheaper model for the requests it can answer, the stronger one for the rest - and records why in the trace.

Also compared

Every OpenAI and Qwen model, with prices, is on the vendor pages; the rankings show what the router actually picks.

For the business

What it means for which models you pay for.

Catalogue of every vendor
The right model, not the famous one
Price, context, abilities and benchmark indexes side by side, with the model that fits each task named.
The rankings
89% less
Lower cost per request
On the 150-prompt benchmark the router spent 89% less than sending every prompt to the reference model, and the judged quality went up, not down.
Read the benchmark
Per million tokens, every model
Prices you can compare
The catalogue prints input and output prices and what three typical monthly workloads cost on each.
The model catalogue

Which LLM is the cheapest for our workload?: The best-for pages rank the live catalogue per task by the index that measures it, and the router picks the cheapest model that meets your quality rule for each request.
How much can we save on our LLM bill?: On the public benchmark the router saved 89% against sending everything to the reference model. Import last month's provider bill on the bill page and the estimate is computed on your own traffic before you change a line of code.
How often do model prices change?: The catalogue is refreshed from the vendors' price lists; each model page shows the date of its data.

Stop choosing between GPT-4.1 Mini and Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct. Route to both.

Declare the pair as targets and OpenSmartRoute picks per request - the cheaper one where it holds up, the stronger one where it matters - with the comparison in every trace.

Create a free account Try a request

Free plan, no card. Fifteen thousand decisions a month with the full trace.

Specification

GPT-4.1 Mini

Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct

Input price / 1M tokens

$0.40

$0.21

Output price / 1M tokens

$1.60

$1.90

Blended (3 in : 1 out)

$0.70

$0.63

Cached input / 1M

$0.10

Context window

1.0M

262K

Max output

33K

Input

image, text, file

text, image

Output

text

Tool calls

Structured output

Reasoning

Open weights

Intelligence index

Coding index

Agentic index

Released

Apr 14, 2025

Sep 23, 2025

Available on this deployment

Workload

GPT-4.1 Mini

Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct

Difference

Support chat20M tokens in, 5M out a month - a help desk answering a few thousand conversations.

$16.00

$13.70

$2.30 less on Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct

Document summaries100M in, 5M out - long inputs, short answers.

$48.00

$30.50

$17.50 less on Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct

Coding assistant60M in, 20M out - a team's editor assistant, output-heavy.

$56.00

$50.60

$5.40 less on Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct

# targets.yaml - both models as routing targets (metadata.model links each to the catalogue entry) targets: - { id: qwen3-vl-235b-a22b-instruct, kind: llm, metadata: { model: qwen/qwen3-vl-235b-a22b-instruct } } - { id: gpt-4.1-mini, kind: llm, metadata: { model: openai/gpt-4.1-mini } } # rules.yaml - the cheaper model by default, the stronger one when the request is hard rules: - name: simple-requests-stay-cheap when: { max_complexity: 0.45 } prefer: [qwen3-vl-235b-a22b-instruct] weight: 0.8 - name: hard-requests-escalate when: { min_complexity: 0.45 } prefer: [gpt-4.1-mini] weight: 0.8

Frequently asked

Is GPT-4.1 Mini cheaper than Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct?

No. GPT-4.1 Mini lists at $0.40 in / $1.60 out per million tokens, Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct at $0.21 in / $1.90 out; blended, Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct is the cheaper one.

Which is better, GPT-4.1 Mini or Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct?

On the Artificial Analysis intelligence index GPT-4.1 Mini scores higher (10 against 10). "Better" depends on the task: the coding and agentic indexes below and the abilities row may point the other way for your requests.

Which has the longer context window?

GPT-4.1 Mini - 1.0M tokens against 262K.

Can I use GPT-4.1 Mini and Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct together?

Yes. Declare both as targets and OpenSmartRoute picks one per request on quality for the task, price and your rules - the cheaper model for the requests it can answer, the stronger one for the rest - and records why in the trace.

GPT-4.1 Mini vs Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct

Side by side

What a month costs

What the router does with the pair

Frequently asked

Also compared

What it means for which models you pay for.

The right model, not the famous one

Lower cost per request

Prices you can compare

Stop choosing between GPT-4.1 Mini and Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct. Route to both.

GPT-4.1 Mini vs Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct

Side by side

What a month costs

What the router does with the pair

Frequently asked

Also compared

What it means for which models you pay for.

The right model, not the famous one

Lower cost per request

Prices you can compare

Stop choosing between GPT-4.1 Mini and Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct. Route to both.