Side-by-side comparison of pricing, 12 benchmarks, and generation speed.
| Metric | NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) | Apertus 8B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Input ($/M tokens) | $0.05 | $0.1 |
| Output ($/M tokens) | $0.2 | $0.2 |
Verdict. NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) wins the overall benchmark matchup 2–0 across 2 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, Apertus 8B Instruct is meaningfully cheaper if your traffic is output-heavy (long completions, document generation, agent loops). Apertus 8B Instruct makes more sense when output volume is low and absolute reasoning quality justifies the premium.
Strengths. NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) is strongest on Intelligence Index (14.5), Coding Index (14.4). Apertus 8B Instruct leads on Intelligence Index (1.0).
Speed. Speed data is incomplete for this pair; benchmark and price should decide.
Provider. NVIDIA and Swiss AI Initiative sell to overlapping but distinct developer audiences: NVIDIA tends to ship frontier reasoning models with premium positioning, while Swiss AI Initiative 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): NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) costs $4.50 ($54/year); Apertus 8B Instruct costs $6.00 ($72/year). At a smaller 5M-input/2M-output scale (single-developer tool or prototype): NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) ≈ $0.65/run, Apertus 8B Instruct ≈ $0.90/run. At agent/realtime scale (200M input / 100M output per million requests): NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) ≈ $30/run, Apertus 8B Instruct ≈ $40/run. NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) 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
NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) is cheaper overall. Its blended price (3:1 input/output ratio) is $0.09/M tokens vs $0.13/M for Apertus 8B Instruct.
NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) wins 2 out of 12 benchmarks compared to 0 for Apertus 8B Instruct. See the detailed benchmark chart above for per-category results.
NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) generates tokens faster at 261 tok/s vs — tok/s. NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) also has lower time-to-first-token (1.14s vs —s).
Choose based on your priorities: NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) for lower cost, NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) for stronger benchmark performance, and NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) for faster generation. For latency-sensitive apps, check the TTFT comparison above.