Mixtral 8x7B Instruct vs Qwen3 30B A3B: the real cost to run each

The honest, $0-markup cost to run Mixtral 8x7B Instruct (Mistral AI, 46.7B) and Qwen3 30B A3B (Qwen, 30.5B), side by side — free on your own machine, on your own rented GPU at the vendor's price, or via your own API key.

Mixtral 8x7B Instruct vs Qwen3 30B A3B — cost comparison

	Mixtral 8x7B Instruct	Qwen3 30B A3B
Parameters	46.7B	30.5B
Context window	32.8K	41K
License	Commercial OK	Commercial OK
VRAM to run	~34 GB (Q4_K_M)	~22 GB (Q4_K_M)
Rent a GPU	$0.49/hr	$0.26/hr
Your API key	$0.24/1M (last-known)	$0.34/1M (est.)

Which should you pick?

Easiest to run locally: Qwen3 30B A3B (needs ~22 GB VRAM at its default quant).
Pay-as-you-go (your own API key): Mixtral 8x7B Instruct ~$0.24/1M vs Qwen3 30B A3B ~$0.34/1M — size-based estimates; open the advisor for live prices.
Cheapest to rent by the hour: Qwen3 30B A3B (from $0.26/hr on one rented box).
Longest context: Qwen3 30B A3B (41K tokens).

VRAM, size, context and license are facts from the catalog and the shared cost engine; API prices are real where we have them (labeled "est." otherwise). We don't rank model quality or quote benchmarks here.

Full cost breakdown: Mixtral 8x7B Instruct →
Full cost breakdown: Qwen3 30B A3B →

Open the free Spanvero advisor → to compare them live for your exact workload and hardware.

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