Head-to-head showdown: Codestral 2501 ($0.30 in / $0.90 out per 1M) vs Qwen3 Coder Flash (OpenRouter) ($0.20 in / $0.97 out per 1M). Qwen3 Coder Flash (OpenRouter) is 1.0× cheaper across standard token mixes, with 256K vs 1M context windows.
codestral-2501 · mistral
qwen3-coder-flash · qwen
Benchmark
| Workload Scenario | Codestral 2501 | Qwen3 Coder Flash (OpenRouter) | Price Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1M input tokens (raw text) | $0.30 | $0.195 | +$0.105 |
| 1M output tokens (generation) | $0.90 | $0.975 | −$0.075 |
| 1M tokens · 70% input / 30% output mix | $0.48 | $0.429 | +$0.051 |
| Standard chat turn (4K in / 800 out, 50% cached) | $0.00138 | $0.001248 | +$0.000132 |
| Monthly scale (10K requests / day) | $414.00 | $374.40 | +$39.60 |
Negative difference = Codestral 2501 is cheaper. Positive = Qwen3 Coder Flash (OpenRouter) is cheaper.
Scaling Curve
Total cost of a token volume at 70/30 input/output split (uncached). Log-log scale.
Verdict
Qwen3 Coder Flash (OpenRouter) has the cheaper input rate, while Codestral 2501 has the cheaper output rate. The crossover happens when output makes up about 58% of your total tokens.
Below that share (retrieval, summarization, extraction — lots of context in, little text out) Qwen3 Coder Flash (OpenRouter) is cheaper. Above it (generation, translation, coding — long completions) Codestral 2501 wins.
FAQ
On input, Qwen3 Coder Flash (OpenRouter) is cheaper ($0.195/M vs $0.30/M). On output, Codestral 2501 is cheaper ($0.90/M vs $0.975/M). For workloads where more than 58% of tokens are output, the output-cheaper model wins overall.
A chat-style request (4,000 input + 800 output tokens, 50% cached) costs $0.00138 on Codestral 2501 and $0.001248 on Qwen3 Coder Flash (OpenRouter) — Qwen3 Coder Flash (OpenRouter) is 1.1× more expensive for that workload.
Codestral 2501 supports 256,000 tokens (8.2K max output); Qwen3 Coder Flash (OpenRouter) supports 1,000,000 (65.5K max output). Qwen3 Coder Flash (OpenRouter) fits 3.9× more context, which matters for long documents and agents.