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Model comparison

Qwen 3.8 Max vs Step 5 Preview

Qwen against StepFun, compared on context, price, and verified benchmark results.

Catalog record checked September 26, 2026Individual provider fields may changeEvidence confidence: Medium — see receipts below

Qwen

Qwen 3.8 Max

Frontier · Open weights

vs

StepFun

Step 5 Preview

Frontier

AI model capability comparison
SpecificationQwen 3.8 MaxStep 5 Preview
ProviderQwenStepFun
TierFrontierFrontier
Context window1M1M
Max output131KNot verifiedUnverified
Input / 1M tokens$2Winner: $1
Output / 1M tokens$6Winner: $2.70
WeightsOpenClosed
Parameters2.4T total / 95B active (MoE)600B total / 27B active MoE (StepFun)
Reasoning levelslow, high, maxNot verifiedUnverified
Modalitiestext, image, videotext, image
API model idqwen3.8-maxstep-5-preview
ReleasedAugust 3, 2026September 18, 2026
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (2026-09-26)Winner: 45.443.7
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (2026-08-03)86.6Not verifiedUnverified
GPQA Diamond (2026-08-03)92.6Not verifiedUnverified
Humanity's Last Exam (2026-08-14)56.2Not verifiedUnverified
SWE-bench Verified (2026-09-01)85.6Not verifiedUnverified

Prices are USD per million tokens at standard rates, excluding batch and caching discounts. Bold indicates the better figure where one is objectively better. Values we could not confirm from the provider are shown as “Not verified” rather than estimated.

Benchmark receipts

Where each score comes from, and how far it can be compared across models.

Pricing tiers

Qwen 3.8 Max: $2/$6 per MTok (Alibaba Cloud Model Studio). 1M context (up to 991K input), 131,072 max output. A dated snapshot qwen3.8-max-0902 is also listed; open weights shipped separately as Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B.

Step 5 Preview: $1.00/$2.70 per MTok on the StepFun platform (cache-hit input $0.05); StepFun lists it under Multimodal Reasoning Models and says output tokens include reasoning. No max-output figure is published. StepFun says open weights follow on 2026-10-15. Release date per Artificial Analysis's listing (StepFun's launch page is undated).

FrontierOpen weightsRecord checked September 26, 2026

Qwen 3.8 Max

Qwen 3.8 Max is Alibaba's flagship — 2.4T MoE with 1M-class context, near frontier on the Intelligence Index.

Best for

  • Open-weight frontier work
  • Long-context
  • Multimodal

Watch out

Open weights dropped 2026-08-12 under a custom (non-Apache) licence with vision and 1M-context stripped from the open checkpoint — the open checkpoint is not the full API model. Verify the licence before commercial use.

FrontierRecord checked September 26, 2026

Step 5 Preview

Step 5 Preview is StepFun's new frontier reasoning model — a 1M-context, vision-input API preview that lands near Kimi K3 and GLM 5.3 on the Artificial Analysis index at a lower price.

Best for

  • Long-context work on a budget
  • Chinese + English
  • Early testing before the open-weight drop

Watch out

Preview: weights are promised for 2026-10-15 but not yet released, and its max output is unpublished and the launch benchmarks are vendor-run.

When the cheaper one wins

Step 5 Preview is cheaper on output at $2.70 per million tokens against $6 for Qwen 3.8 Max — about 2.2×. Use the cheaper tier for classification, extraction, summarisation, and any task where the expensive model’s extra score does not change the accepted output. The expensive one only pays if your hardest task actually fails on the cheap tier. These are standard-tier API rates, excluding batch and cache discounts.

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Evidence confidence: Medium

How strong and complete the evidence behind this comparison is — not a prediction of which model is better.

  • Pricing verified on both sides — Input and output rates are verified for both models.
  • 3/5 core specs verified on both sides — Not published for at least one side: max output, reasoning levels.
  • 1 shared named benchmark (scores match) — Measured on: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index — scores are equivalent, so the benchmark does not separate the pair.
  • Verified within the last 90 days — Newest catalog check was 2 days ago.
  • Both models carry source citations — Each side has at least two catalog sources on record.

Source receipts

Each catalog figure was checked against the provider or an independent second source on the date shown.

Related comparisons

Diving deeper on one model? Qwen 3.8 Max · Step 5 Preview

Common questions

Qwen 3.8 Max vs Step 5 Preview

Answered from the verified figures on this page rather than general guidance.

Is Qwen 3.8 Max or Step 5 Preview cheaper for input?
Step 5 Preview is cheaper at $1 per million input tokens, against $2 for Qwen 3.8 Max — roughly 2.0× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; Qwen 3.8 Max has tiered pricing: $2/$6 per MTok (Alibaba Cloud Model Studio). 1M context (up to 991K input), 131,072 max output. A dated snapshot qwen3.8-max-0902 is also listed; open weights shipped separately as Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B. Step 5 Preview has tiered pricing: $1.00/$2.70 per MTok on the StepFun platform (cache-hit input $0.05); StepFun lists it under Multimodal Reasoning Models and says output tokens include reasoning. No max-output figure is published. StepFun says open weights follow on 2026-10-15. Release date per Artificial Analysis's listing (StepFun's launch page is undated).
Is Qwen 3.8 Max or Step 5 Preview cheaper for output?
Step 5 Preview is cheaper at $2.70 per million output tokens, against $6 for Qwen 3.8 Max — roughly 2.2× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; Qwen 3.8 Max has tiered pricing: $2/$6 per MTok (Alibaba Cloud Model Studio). 1M context (up to 991K input), 131,072 max output. A dated snapshot qwen3.8-max-0902 is also listed; open weights shipped separately as Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B. Step 5 Preview has tiered pricing: $1.00/$2.70 per MTok on the StepFun platform (cache-hit input $0.05); StepFun lists it under Multimodal Reasoning Models and says output tokens include reasoning. No max-output figure is published. StepFun says open weights follow on 2026-10-15. Release date per Artificial Analysis's listing (StepFun's launch page is undated).
Which has the larger context window, Qwen 3.8 Max or Step 5 Preview?
Both accept about 1M tokens of context, so document length will not decide between them.
Should I use Qwen 3.8 Max or Step 5 Preview?
Both sit in the frontier tier, so the choice usually comes down to price and context rather than capability. Qwen 3.8 Max suits open-weight frontier work; Step 5 Preview suits long-context work on a budget.
Can I self-host Qwen 3.8 Max or Step 5 Preview?
Qwen 3.8 Max publishes open weights, but self-hosting and third-party provider access depend on the licence, hardware, serving support, and availability. Step 5 Preview is a closed model whose supported access paths are controlled by its provider.

Next step

Choosing between them

The verified figures that separate this pair, computed from the catalog rather than restated boilerplate.

  • Input price: Step 5 Preview costs $1 per 1M tokens versus $2 for Qwen 3.8 Max — a 2x difference at the headline tier.
  • Deployment: Qwen 3.8 Max publishes weights you can self-host; the other is API-only.
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