Alibaba slashes Qwen AI model prices 80% on Qoder to target US developers
Synopsis
Alibaba is discounting its flagship Qwen3.7-Max model by 80% on its Qoder platform during hours that align with the US workday — a thinly veiled bid to pull American developers away from Anthropic and Zhipu AI at scale.
Key Takeaways
Alibaba Group Holding cut Qwen3.7-Max prices by 80 per cent and Qwen3.7-Plus by 60 per cent on its Qoder agentic coding platform.
The discount window runs from 10pm to 8am Beijing time daily — equivalent to 10am to 8pm US Eastern Time , covering most of the American workday.
The promotion is ongoing with no stated end date, following a separate half-price deal on Qwen3.7-Max that ended earlier in the same week.
In China , the discount applies via the Qoderwork tool, with Alibaba advising users to queue tasks overnight for autonomous execution.
The move directly targets rivals including Anthropic (maker of Claude ) and Zhipu AI (maker of GLM-5.2 ) in the agentic coding market.
Alibaba Group Holding has cut prices for its Qwen AI models by up to 80 per cent on its Qoder agentic coding platform, targeting global — and specifically American — developers in a direct challenge to rivals including Anthropic and Zhipu AI. The discounts, announced on Tuesday, 24 June 2026, are ongoing and apply daily during the same window.
What Alibaba announced
According to the company's post on X, the flagship Qwen3.7-Max model has been repriced at an 80 per cent discount, while the lighter Qwen3.7-Plus model is discounted by 60 per cent. The promotional window runs from 10pm to 8am Beijing time daily for international users.
Although officially labelled an 'off-peak' promotion, the timing maps precisely onto 10am to 8am US Eastern Time — covering the bulk of the American workday. The company made no attempt to obscure this logic.
Why it matters
'If you're in the Americas, here's the twist: off-peak covers most of your workday,' Alibaba said in the post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. The framing signals a deliberate push into the US developer market at a moment when AI coding tools are becoming a primary battleground for cloud platforms.
The move follows a separate half-price promotion for Qwen3.7-Max that concluded earlier in the same week, suggesting Alibaba is sustaining pricing pressure rather than running a one-off campaign.
The competitive backdrop
The discounts position Qoder directly against agentic coding platforms backed by Anthropic — maker of the Claude model family — and Zhipu AI, which offers the competing GLM-5.2 series. Price competition in AI inference has intensified across China and globally as model costs fall and differentiation shifts to developer tooling and agent orchestration.
For Chinese users, the discount applies through Qoderwork, a domestic variant of the platform that also supports Qwen models. Alibaba recommended that local users schedule tasks during daytime hours or queue commands before sleeping, allowing Qoder's autonomous agents to execute code overnight.
What's next
The promotion is described as ongoing with no stated end date, indicating Alibaba intends to sustain the pricing advantage rather than use it as a short-term hook. Developers and enterprise teams evaluating AI coding infrastructure will be watching whether rivals match the discounts — and whether Alibaba extends the offer to additional models in the Qwen family.
Point of View
Now applied cross-border. The back-to-back promotions (a 50% deal followed immediately by an 80% cut) suggest a sustained price-war posture rather than a marketing stunt, and that has implications for the margin assumptions baked into rivals like Anthropic. What mainstream coverage underplays is the agentic angle: by anchoring developers to Qoder's autonomous agent infrastructure at near-zero inference cost, Alibaba is betting that switching costs — not model quality — will determine long-run platform loyalty.
NationPress
24 Jun 2026
Frequently Asked Questions
What discount is Alibaba offering on its Qwen AI models?
Alibaba is offering an 80 per cent discount on its Qwen3.7-Max model and a 60 per cent discount on Qwen3.7-Plus on its Qoder agentic coding platform. The promotion runs daily from 10pm to 8am Beijing time for international users and has no stated end date.
Why is Alibaba targeting US developers with this promotion?
The discount window — 10pm to 8am Beijing time — maps directly onto 10am to 8pm US Eastern Time , covering the core American workday. Alibaba acknowledged this explicitly, stating that for users in the Americas, 'off-peak covers most of your workday.'
Who are Alibaba's main competitors in the AI coding market?
Alibaba is competing against Anthropic , maker of the Claude model family, and Zhipu AI , which offers the GLM-5.2 series, among others. The agentic coding segment has become a key battleground as AI inference costs fall and platforms compete on developer tooling.
What is Qoder and how does it work?
Qoder is Alibaba's agentic coding platform that uses autonomous AI agents to write and execute code. In China , the platform operates under the Qoderwork brand, supporting Qwen models and allowing users to queue tasks for overnight autonomous execution.
Is this a limited-time offer or an ongoing promotion?
The promotion is described as ongoing, running during the same daily time window with no announced expiry. It follows a separate half-price discount on Qwen3.7-Max that concluded earlier in the week of 24 June 2026 , suggesting a sustained rather than one-off pricing strategy.
