DashScope

DashScope pricing details

• Free plan available
• free tier with token credits on new signup
• paid plans from ¥0.20/1M tokens (~$0.03)

Pay-per-token in CNY; Qwen3.6-Flash ¥0.20/1M input / ¥1.20 output (~$0.03/$0.17); Qwen3.7-Plus ¥0.32/¥1.28 (~$0.05/$0.18); Qwen3.8-Max $2.00/$6.00 per 1M (GA Aug 2026); free signup credits vary by promotion (historical: free tier with RPM/daily caps); billing in CNY via Alibaba Cloud; full Chinese UI + docs

In our index: Free plan available; paid from ¥0.20/1M tokens (~$0.03)

How DashScope scores across our 6 index dimensions

• Functionality: 3/5 (research only)
• Usability: 3/5 (research only)
• Stability: 4/5 (research only)
• Collaboration: 3/5 (research only)
• Localization: 5/5 (research only)
• Value: 4/5 (research only)

Score rationale: Research-only: best Chinese-language model support; Qwen models competitive on price; Alibaba Cloud billing may be friction for non-China users; full Chinese UI/docs; free tier history inconsistent (was 1000 req/day, then shut down Apr 2026)

What DashScope does well

• Best dimension: Localization at 5/5 — backed by verification against the official site & pricing.
• Second strong point: Stability at 4/5.
• Pricing: Pay-per-token in CNY
• Positioning: DashScope is Alibaba Cloud's AI model service — Qwen, GLM, MiniMax and other Chinese models with OpenAI-compatible API, free credit promotions, and native Chinese support.
• Source check: Research-only: best Chinese-language model support; Qwen models competitive on price; Alibaba Cloud billing may be friction for non-China users; full Chinese UI/docs; free tier history inconsistent (was 1000 req/day, then shut down Apr 2026)

Where DashScope falls short

• Weakest dimension: Collaboration at 3/5.
• Weigh collaboration before committing.

How DashScope compares to other AI API Gateways tools

Our index tracks 5 AI API Gateways tools. DashScope sits at 3.8/5, with paid plans from ¥0.20/1m tokens (~$0.03). Here are the 4 closest alternatives we hold pricing and scoring evidence for.

• OpenRouter — 4.3/5 · Free plan · $0.07/1M tokens
  OpenRouter is the largest AI model gateway — 374+ models from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, DeepSeek and more, with free tiers, BYOK support, and unified OpenAI-compatible API.
• Groq — 4.2/5 · Free plan · $0.05/1M tokens
  Groq runs open-source LLMs on custom LPU chips that deliver 500+ tokens per second — the fastest inference API available, with a generous free tier and no credit card required.
• Fireworks AI — 4.0/5 · $1 free credit for new accounts · $0.10/1M tokens
  Fireworks AI runs 200+ open-source LLMs with a self-serve post-training stack (SFT/LoRA/RL) and 99.9% uptime SLA — pay-per-token serverless, no GPU provisioning, Day-0 support for new open weights.
• Together AI — 3.9/5 · $5 free signup credit · $0.05/1M tokens
  Together AI is an open-model inference platform with 100+ open-source models, fine-tuning support, and dedicated GPU capacity — built for production AI teams.