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Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct vs Qwen3 VL Thinking (8B)

Alibaba · released

Wins 2 of 7 areas

Coding · Reasoning

Alibaba · released

Wins 5 of 7 areas

Agents · Facts · Images and charts · Long documents · Following instructions

Qwen3 VL Thinking (8B) is the stronger all-rounder.Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct is cheaper and better at reasoning.

Scores updated · 53 tests both models report · How we compare

Where each one wins

Tests won in each of the seven areas where both have results. Each piece is one test, so a longer bar means more evidence; grey means the two scored within a point of each other.

Long documents and following instructions rest on a single test each.

What it costs

Prices per million tokens, roughly 750,000 words. The bars show the cost of a million tokens read plus a million written.

Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct$0.20 to read · $0.80 to write$1.00Price from Artificial Analysis
Qwen3 VL Thinking (8B)$0.18 to read · $2.10 to write$2.28Price from Alibaba's own price page

Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct costs 56% less for the same work.

The biggest differences

The three tests each model wins by the widest margin. Scores are out of 100.

Where Qwen3 VL Thinking (8B) pulls ahead

  • Recent programming contest problemsLiveCodeBench v6+16points aheadQwen3 VL Thinking (8B)58.6Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct42.6
  • Follows unfamiliar, precisely checkable instructionsIFBench+6.8points aheadQwen3 VL Thinking (8B)39.9Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct33.1
  • Reasons across sets of long documentsAA-LCR+6points aheadQwen3 VL Thinking (8B)33.3Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct27.3

Where Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct pulls ahead

  • Graduate-level biology, physics and chemistry questionsGPQA Diamond+11.6points aheadQwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct69.5Qwen3 VL Thinking (8B)57.9
  • Code for real scientific research problemsSciCode+8.9points aheadQwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct30.8Qwen3 VL Thinking (8B)21.9
  • Reads text in imagesOCRBench+8.4points aheadQwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct90.3Qwen3 VL Thinking (8B)81.9

Every test, side by side

All 53 tests both models report. The winning score is in its model's colour; marks a score checked independently.

CodingQwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct

Full coding ranking

AgentsQwen3 VL Thinking (8B)

Full agents ranking

ReasoningQwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct

Full reasoning ranking

FactsQwen3 VL Thinking (8B)

Full facts ranking

Images and chartsQwen3 VL Thinking (8B)
  • OCRBenchQwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct by 8.490.381.9+8.4
  • MMMU-ProQwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct by 5.562.156.6+5.5
  • CharXiv (RQ)Qwen3 VL Thinking (8B) by 4.148.953+4.1
  • MMStarQwen3 VL Thinking (8B) by 3.272.175.3+3.2
  • Video-MMEQwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct by 2.774.571.8+2.7
  • MathVistaQwen3 VL Thinking (8B) by 1.380.181.4+1.3
  • BLINKQwen3 VL Thinking (8B) by 167.768.7+1

Full images and charts ranking

Long documentsQwen3 VL Thinking (8B)
  • AA-LCRQwen3 VL Thinking (8B) by 627.333.3+6

Full long documents ranking

Following instructionsQwen3 VL Thinking (8B)
  • IFBenchQwen3 VL Thinking (8B) by 6.833.139.9+6.8

Full following instructions ranking

Other results34 tests, not counted

Tests outside the eight areas. They are not counted above: several are summary scores built from other tests, or the same test under another name.

Questions people ask

Which is better, Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct or Qwen3 VL Thinking (8B)?

Qwen3 VL Thinking (8B) wins five of the seven areas where both have results: agents, facts, images and charts, long documents and following instructions. Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct wins coding and reasoning, and costs 56% less.

Which is better for coding?

Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct. It wins 2 of the 3 coding tests both models report; Qwen3 VL Thinking (8B) wins 1.

Which is cheaper?

Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct costs $0.20 per million input tokens and $0.80 per million output tokens; Qwen3 VL Thinking (8B) costs $0.18 and $2.10. That makes Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct about 56% cheaper for the same work.

How do you compare the two?

We use the 53 benchmark tests both models have published scores on. The verdict counts the 19 tests in the eight capability areas, and a gap under one point (ten on rating-style scales) counts as a tie. The other 34 are listed but not counted, because several are summary scores or repeat a test. Each score is the one shown on the model's own page.