Compare / Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct vs Phi 4

Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct vs Phi 4

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 18 results on 3 sources that measured both models.

Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct
Alibaba · profile
Phi 4
Microsoft · profile
Results compared
18
Shared sources
3

Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct or Phi 4? The short answer

  • Phi 4 is cheaper: $0.088 against $0.35 per million tokens, 4.0 times less.
  • Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 9.6 against 5.9.
  • Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct writes faster: 180 tokens a second against 42.
  • On our business benchmarks, Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct ranks higher for reasoning and knowledge and writing.
  • On our business benchmarks, Phi 4 ranks higher for sticking to the facts.

At a glance

Qwen3 Next 80B A3B InstructPhi 4
Price per million tokens$0.10 in · $1.10 out$0.070 in · $0.14 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.35$0.088
Cheapest host, blended$0.27 (Alibaba)–
Intelligence Index9.65.9
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second18042
Context window262,144 tokens16,384 tokens
WeightsOpenOpen
Developer based inChinathe 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 caseQwen3 Next 80B A3B InstructPhi 4
Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls not measured 122 of 161
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 140 of 195 178 of 195
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 104 of 187 175 of 187
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 117 of 153 3 of 153

Every shared result

BenchmarkMetricQwen3 Next 80B A3B InstructPhi 4
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedBusiness, management and financeArena rating 1,4111,256
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedCreative writingArena rating 1,3131,210
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedExpert promptsArena rating 1,3991,268
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedInstruction followingArena rating 1,3761,245
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedOverallArena rating 1,3991,256
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedWriting, literature and languageArena rating 1,3421,229
Artificial AnalysisreportedArtificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score 9.605.90
Artificial AnalysisreportedGPQA Diamond% of questions 73.8%57.5%
Artificial AnalysisreportedHumanity's Last Exam% of questions 7.6%3.8%
Artificial AnalysisreportedIFBench% of instructions 39.7%23.5%
Artificial AnalysisreportedLong-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions 52.7%0.0%
Artificial AnalysisreportedOutput speedtokens per second 18042.3
Artificial AnalysisreportedTerminal-Bench Hard% of tasks 7.6%3.8%
Artificial AnalysisreportedTime to first answer tokenseconds 1.051.03
Artificial AnalysisreportedΤ²-bench telecom% of tasks 21.6%0.0%
UGI LeaderboardreportedRequested-length error% off the requested word count 7.0%19.0%
UGI LeaderboardreportedStyle adherencescore from 0 to 1 0.310.34
UGI LeaderboardreportedWriting scorescore out of 100 41.825.7

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 Next 80B A3B Instruct better than Phi 4?

It depends on the task. Among models available today, on our benchmarks and licensed sources, Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct ranks higher for reasoning and knowledge and writing; Phi 4 ranks higher for sticking to the facts.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct or Phi 4?

Phi 4 costs $0.088 per million tokens (three input to one output), against $0.35 for Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct.

Which is faster, Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct or Phi 4?

Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct writes about 180 tokens a second on its usual API, against 42 for Phi 4 (Artificial Analysis).

Run Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct and Phi 4 on your own prompt

Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.