> StepFun
StepFun's open platform exposes Step 3.7 Flash and Step 3.5 Flash reasoning models, a vision model and a full speech stack, priced per 1M tokens, per hour of audio or per 10,000 characters. Step 3.7 Flash is 1.35 CNY per 1M input tokens on a cache miss, 0.27 CNY cached input and 8.1 CNY output; Step 3.5 Flash is 0.7 / 0.14 / 2.1 CNY, and four audio preview models are marked limited-time free in the price table. Rate limits are tiered by cumulative top-up, from V0 with 5 concurrent requests, 10 RPM and 5,000,000 TPM at zero spend to V5 with 200,000 RPM at 10,000 CNY.
// pros
- The zero-spend tier is published rather than hidden: V0 accounts still get 5 concurrent requests, 10 RPM and 5,000,000 TPM, and Step 3.7 Flash offers a 5x cheaper cached-input rate (0.27 versus 1.35 CNY per 1M tokens).
- Limited-time free models are flagged inside the price table itself - stepaudio-3-realtime-preview, stepaudio-3-chat-preview, stepaudio-3-gen-preview and stepaudio-3-music-preview.
- Enterprise plans meter in Credits at a fixed conversion of 1 CNY to 1,000,000 Credits, with Credit valid for 180 days after contract expiry and monthly project or member caps that reset at 00:00 on the 1st.
- Speech is priced per unit rather than bundled, for example stepaudio-2.5-asr at 0.15 CNY per hour, stepaudio-3-asr-max at 2.8 CNY per hour and stepaudio-3-tts at 2.5 CNY per 10,000 characters.
- Value-added tooling has separate per-call prices (internet search 0.04 CNY, image search 0.12 CNY, file storage 0.5 CNY per GB per day), so search-heavy agents can be costed before launch.
// cons
- Gift balance terms are incomplete: the billing doc states spend is deducted from a gift account before the paid balance and that gift amounts expire, but no amount or validity period is published.
- Model lifecycles are short and dated: step-2x-large ended its limited-time free period on 12 June 2026, and step-2x-large plus step-image-edit-2 are scheduled to go offline on 10 October 2026 along with the text-to-image, image-to-image and image-edit endpoints.
- StepFun states it may apply temporary throttling and adjust published limits when capacity is reached, so the tier table is not a contractual guarantee.
- Vision input is billed by a fixed token count - 169 tokens per image by default, or computed from image size in detail mode - and the billing doc quotes a 400-token-per-image accounting figure, so image costs should be verified against actual usage fields.
Reasonable where a Chinese-billed speech stack plus a cheap cached-input Flash model is what you need, and the limited-time-free audio previews make voice prototyping inexpensive. Pair it behind a router, upgrade out of V0's 10 RPM via top-up or an enterprise Credit plan when throughput matters, and track the 10 October 2026 image-endpoint shutdown if you depend on text-to-image.
written by Mike Fleming, Uprouter editorial · verified against official sources September 16, 2026
Free tier present — value not quantified
This provider offers a free tier, but its terms don’t convert cleanly into a USD figure (e.g. request-count limits or capacity-dependent pools). We refuse to print a misleading zero here. See the note below and the official pricing page for the exact limits.
note: No numeric free grant is published on official pages (checked 2026-09-16); the billing doc confirms a gift-balance account is drawn down before paid balance but states no amount, while stepaudio-3-realtime-preview, stepaudio-3-chat-preview, stepaudio-3-gen-preview and stepaudio-3-music-preview are listed as limited-time free in the price table.
| Plan | Type | Monthly | Input /1M | Output /1M | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free tier (source-reported) | free | — | — | — | New users receive ~500K tokens of free starter credit for each model on the platform; after activating the collaboration-reward program, daily free-call quota (~2M tokens) is granted. There is also a Step Plan (for agent/coding) with a 15-day free trial, extendable via referrals up to ~90 days. |
| step-3.5-flash | payg | — | $0.100 | $0.300 | Reasoning model pricing; supports cache hits at $0.02/1M input. |
| step-3.7-flash | payg | — | $0.200 | $1.15 | Multimodal reasoning model. |
| stepaudio-2.5-chat | payg | — | $1.50 | $3.50 | End-to-end speech model. |
Pricing normalized from public sources — always verify with the provider.
// model prices
| Model | Input /1M | Output /1M | Context |
|---|---|---|---|
| Step-3 | — | — | — |
| Step-series text LLMs | — | — | — |
| Step-series multimodal/vision models | — | — | — |
| Step-series speech/audio/image models | — | — | — |
$ Does StepFun have a free tier?
Yes — StepFun offers a free tier. Always confirm current limits on StepFun's official pricing page — free tiers change without notice.
$ How much does StepFun cost per 1M tokens?
StepFun does not publish simple per-1M-token pricing (it may bill per request, per output, or via a subscription plan). Check their official pricing page for exact figures.
$ Is StepFun safe to use?
Uprouter rates StepFun as low risk. Risk: medium. Prices, rate-limit tiers, Credit conversion and shutdown dates are all published on StepFun's own docs, including a dated image-model offline notice, which makes planning possible. The unresolved items are also stated by the provider: no gift-credit amount is published, temporary throttling is reserved when capacity is reached, and several preview audio models are free only for a limited time, so any budget built on those models should carry a fallback price. Risk ratings are editorial, evidence-based, and never influenced by affiliate relationships.
Raw community sentiment, shown unblended. Votes never feed into objective data fields like price, risk, or status — and never into sort order.
No published reviews yet — be the first.
// more_informationprice history · live status · risk & confidence · code snippets
price_history
No recorded changes yet.
live_status
full history →best-effort probes · not a guarantee · last 22h ago
| Checked | Status | Latency |
|---|---|---|
| 22h ago | up | 1293ms |
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| 19d ago | up | 1120ms |
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| 21d ago | up | 1367ms |
| 22d ago | up | 1153ms |
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| 23d ago | up | 1345ms |
| 24d ago | up | 1164ms |
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| 26d ago | up | 1147ms |
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| 27d ago | up | 1384ms |
| 28d ago | up | 1289ms |
| 29d ago | up | 1096ms |
Uprouter runs its own probes; best-effort, not a guarantee. Probe results depend on our network location and cadence — for production, always use the provider’s own status page.
risk_&_confidence
Risk: medium. Prices, rate-limit tiers, Credit conversion and shutdown dates are all published on StepFun's own docs, including a dated image-model offline notice, which makes planning possible. The unresolved items are also stated by the provider: no gift-credit amount is published, temporary throttling is reserved when capacity is reached, and several preview audio models are free only for a limited time, so any budget built on those models should carry a fallback price.
Confidence reflects how much verifiable evidence (official docs, probe history, community reports) backs this entry. Risk is our editorial assessment of operator reliability and terms — not financial advice.
code_snippets
# StepFun's own API — get a key from their dashboard
curl https://YOUR-PROVIDER-ENDPOINT/chat/completions \
-H "Authorization: Bearer THEIR_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "step-3",
"messages": [{ "role": "user", "content": "Hello" }]
}'Direct to the provider — Uprouter receives nothing; verify their current pricing before purchasing.
Ranked by neutral similarity signals only — live status, free-tier shape and free-credit proximity. Commercial relationships never influence this list.