AI model comparison
Step 5 Preview vs Qwen3.8 27B
Pricing, context window, benchmarks, and features compared side by side. Or skip the guesswork and send one prompt to both.
StepFun
Step 5 Preview
Step 5 Preview is StepFun's flagship model for agentic work, built on a sparse Mixture-of-Experts architecture (27B active / 600B total parameters).
- Input / 1M
- $1
- Output / 1M
- $2.70
- Context
- 1M
Qwen
Qwen3.8 27B
Qwen3.8 27B is an open-weight dense vision-language model from Qwen.
- Input / 1M
- $0.43
- Output / 1M
- $2.55
- Context
- 1M
At a glance
Quick verdict
How the two models stack up on the things people ask about most.
Lower price
Qwen3.8 27B
1.6x cheaper for a typical chat
Higher intelligence score
Tie
Not enough benchmark data
Larger context window
Tie
1M vs 1M tokens
Newer release
Step 5 Preview
Released October 8, 2026
Benchmarks
Benchmark scores
Independent scores from Artificial Analysis. Higher is better.
Intelligence index
Qwen3.8 27B33.7Coding index
Qwen3.8 27B68.1Agentic index
Qwen3.8 27B45.8Pricing
Step 5 Preview vs Qwen3.8 27B API pricing
Per-token API rates. Cheaper option highlighted.
| Metric | Qwen3.8 27B | |
|---|---|---|
| Input tokensPer 1M tokens | $1 | $0.43 |
| Output tokensPer 1M tokens | $2.70 | $2.55 |
| Cached input (read)Per 1M tokens | $0.05 | $0.09 |
| Cache writePer 1M tokens | Not available | $0.53 |
What it costs in practice
Estimated cost per 1,000 requests at standard rates. Coding and long-document figures also show the cost when the input is already cached.
Chat message
2K in, 500 out
Qwen3.8 27B$2.13Coding task
30K in, 4K out
Qwen3.8 27B$22.95$12.75 cachedLong document summary
150K in, 2K out
Qwen3.8 27B$68.85$17.85 cachedSpecs
Context window and capabilities
How much each model can read, how much it can write, and what it accepts as input.
| Metric | Qwen3.8 27B | |
|---|---|---|
| Context window | 1M tokens | 1M tokens |
| Max output | 64K tokens | 131K tokens |
| Input types | Image, Text, Video | Image, Text, Video |
| Output types | Text | Text |
| Reasoning effort levels | High, Medium, Low | Extra high, Medium, Low |
| Default reasoning effort | Medium | Extra high |
| Release date | October 8, 2026 | August 14, 2026 |
Features
Supported features
API features available for each model.
| Metric | Qwen3.8 27B | |
|---|---|---|
| Tool calling | Supported | Supported |
| Structured outputs | Supported | Supported |
| JSON mode | Supported | Supported |
| Reasoning | Supported | Supported |
| Temperature | Supported | Supported |
| Stop sequences | Supported | Supported |
| Deterministic seed | Not supported | Supported |
| Verbosity control | Not supported | Not supported |
Keep exploring
More on these models
Other head-to-heads, the full model page, and the alternatives list for each model.
- Step 5 Preview vs DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
- Step 5 Preview vs GLM 5.3 Flash
- Step 5 Preview vs MiMo-V2.6-Flash
- Step 5 Preview vs Hy4 preview
- Step 5 Preview vs GPT-6 Luna
- Step 5 Preview vs DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731
- Step 5 Preview vs Claude Opus 5.5
- Step 5 Preview vs GLM 5.3
- Step 5 Preview vs DeepSeek V4 Flash 0423
- Step 5 Preview vs Gemini 3.8 Flash
- Step 5 Preview vs Hy3
- Step 5 Preview vs DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813
- Step 5 Preview vs Gemini 3 Flash Preview
- Step 5 Preview vs Gemini 2.5 Flash
- Step 5 Preview vs Step 3.7 Flash
Qwen3.8 27BView full model details- Qwen3.8 27B vs DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
- Qwen3.8 27B vs Hy4 preview
- Qwen3.8 27B vs DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731
- Qwen3.8 27B vs GPT-5.6 Luna
- Qwen3.8 27B vs GLM 5.2
- Qwen3.8 27B vs MiniMax M3
- Qwen3.8 27B vs DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813
- Qwen3.8 27B vs DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp
- Qwen3.8 27B vs Gemini 3.6 Flash
- Qwen3.8 27B vs Muse Spark 1.1
- Qwen3.8 27B vs Gemini 3.5 Flash
- Qwen3.8 27B vs Qwen3.7 Max
Our take
Qwen3.8 27B is 1.6x cheaper for a typical chat. The right pick depends on your workload, so the quickest way to settle it is to send the same prompt to both and compare.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Is Step 5 Preview or Qwen3.8 27B cheaper?
Qwen3.8 27B is cheaper for a typical chat (2K input tokens and 500 output tokens). Qwen3.8 27B costs $0.43 per 1M input tokens and $2.55 per 1M output tokens, while Step 5 Preview costs $1 per 1M input tokens and $2.70 per 1M output tokens.
Which has a bigger context window, Step 5 Preview or Qwen3.8 27B?
Step 5 Preview supports up to 1M tokens of context, compared with 1M for Qwen3.8 27B.
Can I use Step 5 Preview and Qwen3.8 27B at the same time?
Yes. Shortcut Chat sends one prompt to multiple models at once, so you can see Step 5 Preview and Qwen3.8 27B answer side by side and keep the better response.
Why choose? Ask both.
Send one prompt to Step 5 Preview and Qwen3.8 27B at the same time. Compare the answers side by side and keep the best one.