Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash undercuts Google's Gemini Flash pricing while matching its multimodal benchmarks

The Decoder 19 Sep 2026, 14:30 UTC 1 min read

In brief

Qwen has introduced Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash, a multimodal model designed for AI agents that can process audio and video, draw conclusions, and use tools. Qwen says its performance on multimodal benchmarks is close to Gemini 3.8 Flash, while its listed usage rates are substantially lower.

The model supports a one-million-token context window and is intended for tasks such as vlog editing, short-video translation, and movie summarization.

Qwen API pricing is $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.47 per million output tokens.

Qwen estimates audio processing at under $0.01 per hour and 720p video with audio at about $0.20 per hour at one frame per second, excluding response costs.

Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash is available through Qwen Studio, Qwen Cloud, and the API; Qwen-MM-Plugins and Qwen-Live Harness extend agent and real-time camera/microphone use cases.

Why it matters: The launch adds a lower-priced multimodal option for developers building agents that work across audio, video, and external tools.

Editorial brief by Sakhanda Wire AI, based on reporting by The Decoder.

Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash undercuts Google's Gemini Flash pricing while matching its multimodal benchmarks

Matthias Bastian View the LinkedIn Profile of Matthias Bastian

Sep 19, 2026

Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash is Qwen's first multimodal model built for AI agents. It processes audio and video together, draws conclusions, and uses tools on its own to edit vlogs, translate short videos, or summarize movies. The context window spans one million tokens. On audio-video tasks, Qwen says it comes close to matching Gemini 3.8 Flash.

Qwen 3.8 Omni Flash performs on par with Gemini Flash 3.8 in multimodal benchmarks but is much more affordable. | Image: Qwen

API pricing sits at $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.47 per million output tokens. Qwen estimates audio input at under $0.01 per hour, while 720p video with audio at one frame per second runs about $0.20, not counting response costs. For comparison, Gemini 3.8 Flash charges $0.75 for input and $3.75 for output per million tokens at its introductory rate, with prices set to double on January 1, 2027.

The model is available through Qwen Studio, Qwen Cloud, and the API. The open-source Qwen-MM-Plugins add video editing, speaker recognition, PDF video notes, and reusable workflows to agents like Claude Code, Gemini CLI, and Qwen Code. Qwen-Live Harness enables real-time interaction using a camera and microphone.

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Source: Qwen

Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash undercuts Google's Gemini Flash pricing while matching its multimodal benchmarks

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