Choose AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini if…
- you want the newer model — released 2026-09-23, 9 months after the other
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini vs ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash
Neither wins outright: AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini is the pick when you want the newer model, ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash when cost matters at scale.
Key numbers
| Spec | AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini | ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Aion Labs | Bytedance Seed |
| Input price (per 1M tokens) | $0.70 | $0.07 |
| Output price (per 1M tokens) | $1.40 | $0.30 |
| Blended price (3:1 input/output) | $0.87 | $0.13 |
| Cheaper than … of all models we track | 42% | 76% |
| Context window | 262K tokens (~393 pages) | 262K tokens (~393 pages) |
| Larger context than … of all models | 48% | 48% |
| Max output per response | 33K tokens (~24,600 words) | 33K tokens (~24,600 words) |
| Input types | text | image, text, video |
| Output types | text | text |
| Free variant | No | No |
| Listed since | 2026-09-23 | 2025-12-23 |
What it costs for real workloads
Monthly cost at list price for five common workloads. Token counts per unit are stated so you can scale them to your own traffic. A workload that does not fit a model's context window is marked rather than priced.
| Workload (per month) | AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini | ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer-support chatbot 50,000 conversations — each a 6-turn conversation (1,500 in / 400 out tokens) | $80.50 | $11.63 | ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash saves $68.88 |
| RAG search over documents 20,000 questions — each a question answered from ~8 retrieved passages (6,000 in / 500 out tokens) | $98.00 | $12.00 | ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash saves $86.00 |
| Coding / tool-using agent 2,000 tasks — each a multi-step task with tool calls and file context (60,000 in / 6,000 out tokens) | $101 | $12.60 | ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash saves $88.20 |
| Batch summarisation 10,000 documents — each a 6,000-word report summarised to a page (8,000 in / 600 out tokens) | $64.40 | $7.80 | ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash saves $56.60 |
| Long-document analysis 500 documents — each a 150-page contract or codebase read in one pass (100,000 in / 2,000 out tokens) | $36.40 | $4.05 | ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash saves $32.35 |
Capabilities side by side
| Capability | AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini | ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash | What it lets you do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tool / function calling | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | call your APIs and run agent loops |
| Structured output (JSON schema) | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | return JSON that validates against your schema |
| Reasoning / thinking mode | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | spend extra tokens thinking before answering hard problems |
| Image input | — | ✓ Yes | read screenshots, charts and scanned pages |
| Audio input | — | — | take speech or audio directly |
| File / PDF input | — | — | accept documents without your own parsing step |
| Image output | — | — | generate images, not just text |
| Built-in web search | — | — | answer from live web results |
| Seed (reproducible sampling) | — | — | repeat a generation for tests and evals |
| Log-probabilities | — | — | read token confidence for classification and scoring |
From each model's published parameters and input/output types. “—” means not advertised, not proven absent.
Price history
- AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini: price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-09-24.
- ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash: price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-03-10.
Which should you choose?
Choose ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash if…
- cost matters at scale — it is 85% cheaper on a typical 3:1 input/output mix ($11.63 vs $80.50 a month for 50,000 support chats)
- you need image input — to read screenshots, charts and scanned pages; AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini does not advertise it
Frequently asked questions
Is AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini better than ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash?
Neither wins outright: AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini is the pick when you want the newer model, ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash when cost matters at scale. In short: AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini when you want the newer model; ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash when cost matters at scale, you need image input.
Which is cheaper, AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini or ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash?
ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash is cheaper: $0.13 vs $0.87 per 1M tokens at a typical 3:1 input/output mix, 85% less. For 50,000 support conversations a month that is $11.63 against $80.50.
How much do AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini and ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash cost per million tokens?
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini costs $0.70 per 1M input tokens and $1.40 per 1M output tokens; ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash costs $0.07 input and $0.30 output. Output tokens are billed separately, so long answers shift the gap.
Which has the bigger context window, AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini or ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash?
Both take 262K tokens per request — roughly 393 pages of text.
Do AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini and ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash support function calling and JSON output?
Tool calling — AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini: yes, ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash: yes. JSON-schema structured output — AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini: yes, ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash: yes.
Can AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini or ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash read images?
Only ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash accepts image input; AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini is text-only for input.
Is AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini or ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash free to use?
No free variant is listed for either; both are pay-per-token.
What is the maximum output length of AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini and ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash?
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini can write up to 33K tokens (about 24,600 words) per response; ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash up to 33K (about 24,600 words).
When were AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini and ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash released?
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini was listed on 2026-09-23; ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash on 2025-12-23.
About the two models
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini
Aion 3.5 Mini is a multi-model roleplaying and storytelling system from AionLabs, built on the GLM family of models. It is the smaller, lower-cost sibling of Aion 3.5 and uses...
Full AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini specs →ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash
Seed 1.6 Flash is an ultra-fast multimodal deep thinking model by ByteDance Seed, supporting both text and visual understanding. It features a 256k context window and can generate outputs of...
Full ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash specs →