Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct vs DeepSeek-Coder-V2-Lite Instruct: the real cost to run each

The honest, $0-markup cost to run Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct (Qwen, 30.5B) and DeepSeek-Coder-V2-Lite Instruct (DeepSeek, 15.7B), side by side — free on your own machine, on your own rented GPU at the vendor's price, or via your own API key.

Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct vs DeepSeek-Coder-V2-Lite Instruct — cost comparison

Which should you pick?

• Easiest to run locally: DeepSeek-Coder-V2-Lite Instruct (needs ~11 GB VRAM at its default quant).
• Pay-as-you-go (your own API key): Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct ~$0.17/1M vs DeepSeek-Coder-V2-Lite Instruct ~$0.23/1M — size-based estimates; open the advisor for live prices.
• Cheapest to rent by the hour: Either.
• Longest context: Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct (262.1K 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: Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct →
Full cost breakdown: DeepSeek-Coder-V2-Lite Instruct →

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

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Spanvero · All comparisons · Prices as of 2026-07-06. $0 markup, your own accounts, we never resell compute. © 2026 Cynosure LLC.