Side-by-side comparison of pricing, 12 benchmarks, and generation speed.
| Metric | DeepSeek V3.1 (Non-reasoning) | Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Input ($/M tokens) | $0.56 | $0.4 |
| Output ($/M tokens) | $1.68 | $1.6 |
Verdict. DeepSeek V3.1 (Non-reasoning) wins the overall benchmark matchup 1–0 across 1 overlapping categories, but raw benchmark score is only one input to the decision.
Pricing. Both models sit in the budget bracket for output-token pricing. At 1.0× the per-million-token cost, Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct is meaningfully cheaper if your traffic is output-heavy (long completions, document generation, agent loops). Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct makes more sense when output volume is low and absolute reasoning quality justifies the premium.
Strengths. DeepSeek V3.1 (Non-reasoning) is strongest on Intelligence Index (21.4). Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct leads on Intelligence Index (14.4).
Speed. Speed data is incomplete for this pair; benchmark and price should decide.
Provider. DeepSeek and Alibaba sell to overlapping but distinct developer audiences: DeepSeek tends to ship frontier reasoning models with premium positioning, while Alibaba often prices more aggressively. Your existing vendor relationships, billing, and SLA preferences may matter as much as the raw numbers above.
Workload cost. Workload scenarios (per million requests at 30M input + 15M output tokens): DeepSeek V3.1 (Non-reasoning) costs $42.00 ($504/year); Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct costs $36.00 ($432/year). At a smaller 5M-input/2M-output scale (single-developer tool or prototype): DeepSeek V3.1 (Non-reasoning) ≈ $6.16/run, Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct ≈ $5.20/run. At agent/realtime scale (200M input / 100M output per million requests): DeepSeek V3.1 (Non-reasoning) ≈ $280/run, Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct ≈ $240/run. Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct becomes more attractive at higher volume — the absolute per-token pricing difference compounds when you ship at scale.
Recommendation. Both models have legitimate use cases — the right answer depends on whether you are optimizing for benchmark ceiling, latency, or unit cost. Start with the cheaper / faster model, evaluate against your specific task, and only switch if the upgrade shows a meaningful lift.
Data from Artificial Analysis API — 12 benchmarks
Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct is cheaper overall. Its blended price (3:1 input/output ratio) is $0.70/M tokens vs $0.84/M for DeepSeek V3.1 (Non-reasoning).
DeepSeek V3.1 (Non-reasoning) wins 1 out of 12 benchmarks compared to 0 for Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct. See the detailed benchmark chart above for per-category results.
Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct generates tokens faster at 47 tok/s vs — tok/s. However, Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct has lower time-to-first-token (2.70s vs —s).
Choose based on your priorities: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct for lower cost, DeepSeek V3.1 (Non-reasoning) for stronger benchmark performance, and Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct for faster generation. For latency-sensitive apps, check the TTFT comparison above.