Yes, Qwen is free in two main ways: Alibaba publishes many Qwen models as open weights you can download at no cost, and new Qwen Cloud API users get a free trial quota before pay-as-you-go billing starts.
As of October 31, 2026, Qwen’s Hugging Face page lists models such as Qwen3.8-27B under the Apache 2.0 license, which allows commercial use. Other releases, including Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B and Qwen3.8-Flash-Next, use custom Qwen licenses, so check each model’s LICENSE file before using it in a product.
For the API, Qwen Cloud documentation says new users in the Singapore region receive a free quota for each model, typically 1,000,000 tokens, valid for 90 days from account activation. The quota covers only real-time inference, not batch calls, fine-tuning or built-in tool fees. Other regions have no free quota, and usage is billed pay-as-you-go once the quota runs out or expires. You can turn on the Free Quota Only setting so the service stops instead of charging you.
Related: Qwen-Audio 3.1 guide and Is Ollama free?
Source: Qwen Cloud, “Free quota”; Alibaba Cloud Model Studio, “Free quota for new users”; Qwen, “Qwen3.8-27B” model card on Hugging Face
Image: Qwen logo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. Qwen is a trademark of Alibaba Cloud.