Compare / Qwen3 30B A3B vs Llama 3.1 8B Instruct
Qwen3 30B A3B vs Llama 3.1 8B Instruct
Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 16 results on 3 sources that measured both models.
Qwen3 30B A3B or Llama 3.1 8B Instruct? The short answer
- Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is cheaper: $0.058 against $0.21 per million tokens, 3.7 times less.
- They score about the same on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (7.6 and 6.9).
- On our business benchmarks, Qwen3 30B A3B ranks higher for reasoning and knowledge and writing.
At a glance
| Qwen3 30B A3B | Llama 3.1 8B Instruct | |
|---|---|---|
| Price per million tokens | $0.12 in · $0.50 out | $0.050 in · $0.080 out |
| Blended (3 in : 1 out) | $0.21 | $0.058 |
| Cheapest host, blended | $0.21 (DeepInfra, FP8) | $0.025 (DeepInfra, FP8) |
| Intelligence Index | 7.6 | 6.9 |
| Spring Prompt overall | – | – |
| Output speed, tokens a second | – | – |
| Context window | 131,072 tokens | 131,072 tokens |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Developer based in | China | the US |
Prices are the developer's list price where we have read it, otherwise the typical host on OpenRouter; see every model's price. Intelligence and speed from Artificial Analysis.
Which is better for what
Each model's rank among models available today, for each kind of work, from our own benchmarks and licensed sources. The better rank is in green.
| Use case | Qwen3 30B A3B | Llama 3.1 8B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls | not measured | 154 of 161 |
| Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge | 158 of 195 | 173 of 195 |
| WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality | 154 of 187 | 178 of 187 |
Every shared result
| Benchmark | Metric | Qwen3 30B A3B | Llama 3.1 8B Instruct |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | Business, management and financeArena rating | 1,330 | 1,210 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | Creative writingArena rating | 1,283 | 1,177 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | Expert promptsArena rating | 1,343 | 1,198 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | Instruction followingArena rating | 1,310 | 1,191 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | OverallArena rating | 1,327 | 1,211 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | Writing, literature and languageArena rating | 1,304 | 1,182 |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score | 7.60 | 6.90 |
| Artificial Analysisreported | GPQA Diamond% of questions | 61.6% | 25.9% |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Humanity's Last Exam% of questions | 6.2% | 5.3% |
| Artificial Analysisreported | IFBench% of instructions | 41.5% | 28.6% |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions | 0.0% | 18.0% |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks | 6.8% | 0.8% |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Τ²-bench telecom% of tasks | 26.0% | 16.4% |
| UGI Leaderboardreported | Requested-length error% off the requested word count | 14.0% | 20.0% |
| UGI Leaderboardreported | Style adherencescore from 0 to 1 | 0.36 | 0.34 |
| UGI Leaderboardreported | Writing scorescore out of 100 | 30.2 | 24.8 |
Bold green marks the better value on that metric. Where a source reports ranges that overlap, the difference may not be meaningful; see the benchmark page for ranges.
Quick answers
Is Qwen3 30B A3B better than Llama 3.1 8B Instruct?
It depends on the task. Among models available today, on our benchmarks and licensed sources, Qwen3 30B A3B ranks higher for reasoning and knowledge and writing.
Which is cheaper, Qwen3 30B A3B or Llama 3.1 8B Instruct?
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct costs $0.058 per million tokens (three input to one output), against $0.21 for Qwen3 30B A3B.
Run Qwen3 30B A3B and Llama 3.1 8B Instruct on your own prompt
Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.