Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B vs Grok Build 0.1
Both are built for agentic coding, but they diverge on cost, context, and modality. Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B is a text-only Mixture-of-Experts model from Qwen optimized for function calling and long-context reasoning over codebases. Grok Build 0.1 is xAI's newer entry, text-and-image in, with mandatory reasoning turned on. The gap in list price and context window is large enough to decide most projects before you even run a benchmark.
Spec vs spec
| Spec | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Grok Build 0.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Context window | 1.0M | 256K |
| Max output | 66K | — |
| Input modalities | text | text, image |
| Output modalities | text | text |
| Knowledge cutoff | Jun 30, 2025 | — |
| Released | Jul 23, 2025 | May 20, 2026 |
| Reasoning | — | always on |
Pricing
Per 1M tokens. Provider price plus the flat 3% fee — the sum is what you pay.
qwen/qwen3-coder
Input · 1M tokens
$0.220 + 3%$0.227
Output · 1M tokens
$1.80 + 3%$1.85
FEE — FLAT, EVERY MODEL3%
x-ai/grok-build-0.1
Input · 1M tokens
$1.00 + 3%$1.03
Output · 1M tokens
$2.00 + 3%$2.06
Cache read · 1M tokens
$0.200 + 3%$0.206
FEE — FLAT, EVERY MODEL3%
One workload, priced on both
10M input + 2M output tokens at each model's price, flat 3% fee included.
qwen/qwen3-coderCheaper
$5.97
$5.80 provider + 3%
x-ai/grok-build-0.1
$14.42
$14.00 provider + 3%
Pricing math for a real workload
For a 10M-input / 2M-output token workload, Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B runs $5.80 total. Grok Build 0.1 runs $14.00 for the same shape — 2.4x more. On a per-token basis, Qwen3 Coder's provider input price is $0.22/M and output is $1.80/M; on OpenKey that's $0.2266/M input and $1.854/M output after the flat 3% fee. Grok Build 0.1's provider price is $1.00/M input and $2.00/M output, which becomes $1.03/M and $2.06/M on OpenKey. Grok does offer cache-read pricing at $0.20/M, which Qwen3 Coder doesn't list — worth checking if your workload reuses long system prompts heavily. Both models run through the same OpenKey key, so switching between them for A/B testing costs nothing but the per-token difference.
Context and long-document work
Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B supports 1,048,576 tokens of context, against Grok Build 0.1's 256,000 — a 4.1x gap. If you're feeding in large repos, long log files, or multi-file diffs for agentic review, Qwen3 Coder has more headroom before you need to chunk or summarize. Qwen3 Coder also caps output at 65,536 tokens; Grok Build 0.1 doesn't list a max completion token value in the catalog, so check the provider docs before assuming unlimited output.
Coding benchmarks
Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B has Design Arena scores across five categories: codecategories (elo 1192, 61.2% win rate, rank 54), website (elo 1201, 61.7% win rate, rank 55), UI component (elo 1170, 61.5% win rate, rank 56), gamedev (elo 1167, 59% win rate, rank 58), and dataviz (elo 1126, 54.9% win rate, rank 74). Grok Build 0.1 has no Design Arena or artificial_analysis benchmarks in the catalog yet, since it's a newer release (created 2026-05-20 vs Qwen3 Coder's 2025-07-23). That makes Qwen3 Coder the safer bet when you need data to justify the model choice, not just a hunch.
Modality and reasoning behavior
Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B is text-to-text only. Grok Build 0.1 accepts text and image input, text output only, which matters if your agentic workflow needs to read screenshots, diagrams, or UI mockups as part of the coding task. Grok Build 0.1 also has reasoning marked mandatory in its parameters — it always produces reasoning traces, whereas Qwen3 Coder has no reasoning field set. Qwen3 Coder supports more sampling parameters overall (17 vs Grok's 14), including `min_p`, `top_k`, `logit_bias`, and `repetition_penalty`, giving you finer control over generation if you're tuning agent behavior.
Which model for which job
| Use case | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Large-repo agentic refactors | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | 1,048,576-token context is 4.1x larger than Grok Build 0.1's 256,000 |
| High-volume coding agent at scale | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | $5.80 vs $14.00 for a 10M-in/2M-out workload |
| Coding tasks that need screenshot or diagram input | Grok Build 0.1 | Supports image input; Qwen3 Coder is text-only |
| Workflows needing visible reasoning traces by default | Grok Build 0.1 | Reasoning is mandatory in its parameter set |
| Benchmark-backed model selection | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Has Design Arena scores across 5 categories; Grok Build 0.1 has none listed |
| Fine-grained sampling control | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Supports 17 parameters including min_p and top_k vs Grok's 14 |
Questions
- Which model is cheaper for coding agents?
- Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B, by a wide margin. A 10M-input/2M-output workload costs $5.80 on Qwen3 Coder versus $14.00 on Grok Build 0.1 — roughly 2.4x less. The gap comes mostly from input pricing: $0.22/M for Qwen3 Coder vs $1.00/M for Grok Build 0.1 at the provider level.
- Which model has a bigger context window?
- Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B supports 1,048,576 tokens, compared to Grok Build 0.1's 256,000 — a 4.1x difference. That matters most for feeding entire repos or long logs into a single call without chunking.
- Does Grok Build 0.1 support images?
- Yes. Grok Build 0.1 accepts text and image input with text-only output. Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B is text-to-text only, so if your agent needs to read a screenshot or UI mockup, Grok Build 0.1 is the only option of the two.
- How do these models price out on OpenKey?
- OpenKey charges provider list price plus a flat 3% fee. Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B comes out to $0.2266/M input and $1.854/M output; Grok Build 0.1 comes out to $1.03/M input and $2.06/M output. Both run through the same API key alongside 329 other models on the platform.