---
title: "Qwen-Image API pricing"
canonical: "https://router.xark.io/models/qwen-image"
description: "Qwen-Image at $0.0120/img, 40% below the official rate. Apache 2.0 licensed, OpenAI-compatible."
section: "models"
updated: "2026-09-02"
source: "https://router.xark.io/models/qwen-image.md"
---

# Qwen-Image API pricing

Qwen-Image costs $0.0120 per image, against an official rate of $0.0200 — 40% below official pricing. It is an Alibaba model under the Apache 2.0 licence, callable through an OpenAI-compatible endpoint with the model id `qwen/qwen-image`.

**Availability:** callable today at `qwen/qwen-image`. 7 of the 24 catalogued models are callable today; the rest are catalogued at their intended rate but not served.

## At a glance

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Model id | `qwen/qwen-image` |
| Publisher | Alibaba |
| Modality | image |
| Licence | Apache 2.0 — [what it permits](https://router.xark.io/licences/apache-2-0.md) |
| Capacity | up to 1.5K |
| Released | Aug 4, 2025 |
| Unit | per image |
| Saving vs official | 40% |
| Callable today | Yes |

## Pricing

| Line item | Applies to | Our rate | Official rate | Saving |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Image output | All requests | $0.0120/img | $0.0200/img | 40% off |

## Other providers carrying this model

| Provider | Input | Output |
| --- | --- | --- |
| AI Token Router | $0.0120/img | — |
| Replicate | $0.0250/img | — |
| fal.ai | $0.0220/img | — |
| Publisher (official) | $0.0200/img | — |

## What it is

Best-in-class text rendering inside images — the one thing most open image models still get wrong. Apache 2.0.

## Good for

- Posters, ads and any image containing legible text
- Bilingual EN/ZH typography
- Image editing and inpainting

## Calling it

### Python

```python
from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    api_key="YOUR_API_KEY",
    base_url="https://router.xark.io/api/v1"   # ← the only line that changes
)

response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="qwen/qwen-image",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}]
)
```

### Node.js

```javascript
import OpenAI from "openai";

const client = new OpenAI({
  apiKey: process.env.ROUTER_API_KEY,
  baseURL: "https://router.xark.io/api/v1"   // ← the only line that changes
});

const response = await client.chat.completions.create({
  model: "qwen/qwen-image",
  messages: [{ role: "user", content: "Hello" }]
});
```

### cURL

```bash
curl https://router.xark.io/api/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ROUTER_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "qwen/qwen-image",
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}]
  }'
```

## Questions

### What does Qwen-Image cost on AI Token Router, and what is the official rate?

Qwen-Image is billed at $0.0120 per image here, against Alibaba's official $0.0200 — 40% below, or $0.0080 per image back. There is no platform fee, no minimum spend and no per-job surcharge on top of that rate, and failed requests are not billed. The official figure is published next to ours because a discount with no stated benchmark is not a claim anyone can check.

### Can I call Qwen-Image right now?

Yes. A request naming `qwen/qwen-image` reaches a live upstream today and is billed at the rates above. 7 of the 24 models in this catalogue are callable right now; the rest are listed at their intended price and marked unavailable on their own pages, so you find that out here rather than from an error at call time.

### How do I generate an image with Qwen-Image?

POST to `https://router.xark.io/api/v1/images/generations` with `"model": "qwen/qwen-image"` and a prompt, or call `images.generate` on an OpenAI SDK pointed at `https://router.xark.io/api/v1`. The request and response shapes follow the OpenAI images API, so an existing integration needs the base URL and the model id changed and nothing else. The bare name `qwen-image`, without the provider prefix, resolves to the same model.

### What resolution does Qwen-Image output, and what counts as one billable image?

Qwen-Image outputs at up to 1.5K. Billing is per generated image at $0.0120/img — one rate, so resolution, prompt length and the number of denoising steps do not change what you are charged, and a request that fails is not billed at all. Asking for several images in one call bills as that many images, which is the same as making the calls separately.

### What licence is Qwen-Image under, and can I use it commercially?

Qwen-Image is published by Alibaba under the Apache 2.0 licence. Apache 2.0 is a standard permissive licence: commercial use, modification and redistribution are allowed, subject to keeping the notices and stating what you changed. It also carries an explicit patent grant from the contributors, which terminates if you bring a patent claim over the work — that grant is usually the reason a legal team prefers it to MIT. No user threshold and no field-of-use restriction apply.

### How does Qwen-Image pricing here compare with other providers carrying it?

Of the 2 other providers we track carrying Qwen-Image, the lowest is fal.ai at $0.0220/img, against our $0.0120/img. That is where the rates stood when we last reconciled them, and it can change without notice — we are not claiming to be the cheapest source for this model, only that our rate sits below Alibaba's official $0.0200/img. If you find one of these figures stale, tell us and we will correct it.

### What is Qwen-Image actually good at?

Best-in-class text rendering inside images — the one thing most open image models still get wrong. Apache 2.0. In practice that points at posters, ads and any image containing legible text, bilingual EN/ZH typography and image editing and inpainting. The specifics that actually decide a fit — the rate, the licence and what it will and will not serve today — are all on this page rather than behind a sales conversation.

## Related models

| Model | Our rate | Callable | Document |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| FLUX.2 [schnell] | $0.0018/img | No | [read](https://router.xark.io/models/flux-2-schnell.md) |
| Stable Diffusion 3.5 Large | $0.0210/img | No | [read](https://router.xark.io/models/sd-3-5-large.md) |
| HiDream-I1 | $0.0150/img | No | [read](https://router.xark.io/models/hidream-i1.md) |