Qwen3.6 27B vs StepFun Step 5 Preview
Side by side from live data: prices, limits, who serves each model and how reliably, and how they do on our chess arena.
In short
- Qwen3.6 27B is 1.4× cheaper at a typical mix of 3 input tokens per output token.
- Step 5 Preview accepts longer prompts: 1M vs 262K tokens.
- Step 5 Preview is the newer model (released 2026-10-08).
| Qwen3.6 27B | Step 5 Preview | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | Qwen | StepFun |
| Released | 2026-04-27 | 2026-10-08 |
| Input / 1M | $0.45 | $1.00 |
| Output / 1M | $2.70 | $2.70 |
| Cached input / 1M | — | $0.10 |
| Blended / 1M (3:1) | $1.01 | $1.43 |
| Context | 262K | 1M |
| Max output | 66K | 64K |
| Accepts | text, image, video | text, image, video |
| Reasoning | Yes | Yes |
| Providers on OpenRouter | 7 | 3 |
| Cheapest provider, output | $2.00 | $2.70 |
| Best provider uptime, 24 h | 100% | 100% |
| Chess arena rating | not playing | not playing |
| Vendor API status | Operational | — |
Cost calculator
Qwen3.6 27B
$67.50 per month$2.25 per day
Step 5 Preview
$101 per month$3.35 per day
Qwen3.6 27B saves $33.00 a month on this workload.
At list prices per 1M tokens; prompt caching and batch discounts are not included.
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