Head-to-head showdown: Qwen3.8 27B (OpenRouter) ($0.42 in / $3.00 out per 1M) vs GPT-5.5 Pro ($30.00 in / $180.00 out per 1M). Qwen3.8 27B (OpenRouter) is 61.4× cheaper across standard token mixes, with 1M vs 512K context windows.
qwen3.8-27b · qwen
gpt-5.5-pro · openai
Cost by Volume
| Workload Scenario | Qwen3.8 27B (OpenRouter) | GPT-5.5 Pro | Price Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1M input tokens (raw text) | $0.42 | $30.00 | −$29.58 |
| 1M output tokens (generation) | $3.00 | $180.00 | −$177.00 |
| 1M tokens · 70% input / 30% output mix | $1.194 | $75.00 | −$73.806 |
| Standard chat turn (4K in / 800 out, 50% cached) | $0.00408 | $0.21 | −$0.2059 |
| Monthly scale (10K requests / day) | $1,224.00 | $63,000.00 | −$61,776.00 |
Negative difference = Qwen3.8 27B (OpenRouter) is cheaper. Positive = GPT-5.5 Pro is cheaper.
Best For
Fit score = weighted composite blend for each use case; value = fit ÷ cost per 1,000 requests.
| Use case | Fit — Qwen3.8 27B (OpenRouter) | Fit — GPT-5.5 Pro | Cost / 1K — Qwen3.8 27B (OpenRouter) | Cost / 1K — GPT-5.5 Pro | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Customer support chatbot | — | — | $2.52 | $101.85 | no data |
| RAG / search-augmented answers | — | — | $4.86 | $222.00 | no data |
| AI coding assistant | — | — | $11.04 | $525.60 | no data |
| Document summarization | — | — | $12.30 | $790.50 | no data |
| Agentic workflow | — | — | $21.30 | $768.00 | no data |
| Content generation | — | — | $3.936 | $233.52 | no data |
| Data extraction & tagging | — | — | $1.59 | $94.20 | no data |
| Translation | — | — | $18.60 | $1,119.75 | no data |
Costs use each use case's typical token mix and cacheable share. Fit weights are documented on the methodology page.
Scaling Curve
Total cost of a token volume at 70/30 input/output split (uncached). Log-log scale.
Verdict
Qwen3.8 27B (OpenRouter) is cheaper on both input and output rates, so it costs less at every input/output mix. Price alone still isn't the whole decision: capability, latency and context limits (Qwen3.8 27B (OpenRouter): 1M, GPT-5.5 Pro: 512K) may justify the premium for your task.
FAQ
On input, Qwen3.8 27B (OpenRouter) is cheaper ($0.42/M vs $30.00/M). On output, Qwen3.8 27B (OpenRouter) is cheaper ($3.00/M vs $180.00/M). The same model is cheaper on both sides, so it wins at every mix.
A chat-style request (4,000 input + 800 output tokens, 50% cached) costs $0.00408 on Qwen3.8 27B (OpenRouter) and $0.21 on GPT-5.5 Pro — Qwen3.8 27B (OpenRouter) is 51.5× cheaper for that workload.
Qwen3.8 27B (OpenRouter) supports 1,000,000 tokens (131.1K max output); GPT-5.5 Pro supports 512,000 (64K max output). Qwen3.8 27B (OpenRouter) fits 2.0× more context, which matters for long documents and agents.