StepFun Step
stepfun.ai · 2 records in Coding subscriptions, Inference · JSON
Records 2
- trialStepFun Open Platform (platform.stepfun.ai)
Inferencefree tieridentity email?card?limit request-rateevidence documentedstale on 2026-12-04
- paidStepFun Step Plan
Coding subscriptionsidentity cardlimit retention-clampedevidence documentedstale on 2026-11-30
- Free allowance
- No standing token allowance.
- Verdict
- triala time-boxed or one-time trial, not a recurring allowance
- Cost
- free tier
- Identity
- email?placeholder, not evidence; card unknown, phone unknown
- Binding limit
- request-ratetier V0 for cumulative top-up under USD 15: concurrency 5, 100 RPM, 500,000 TPM; the tier rises only with cash top-ups, and vouchers do not count
- Evidence
- documented13 sources; a first-party page was read and the sentence quoted
- Freshness
- stale on 2026-12-04checked 2026-11-03 (live); stale on 2026-12-04
| Free tier | No standing token allowance. Billing draws from free credit first and then from the paid balance, free credit can expire, and no credit amount is published on the pages read. The preview speech models stepaudio-3-realtime-preview and stepaudio-3-chat-preview are listed Free (limited time). Text reasoning is paid: step-3.5-flash is USD 0.10 per 1M cache-miss input and USD 0.30 per 1M output unit mixed; metered on unstated; free-preview-models |
|---|---|
| Price | none stated |
| Limits |
|
| Binding | request-rate rate tier follows cumulative cash top-up; an account with no top-up starts at the lowest tier |
| Identity | email (placeholder) unverified: the overseas documentation (platform.stepfun.ai) states individual accounts must complete identity verification first and names no document or country scope; the mainland sibling platform (platform.stepfun.com) documents an individual real-name check of the holder's name and ID card number with an Alipay face-recognition scan, and it is not stated that the overseas platform uses the same check |
| Egress | not published |
| Interface | rest |
| Tooling | not stated |
| Composes with | the limited-time free audio preview models are the only zero-priced rows; text reasoning models are paid per token |
| Reliability | text-to-image models step-2x-large and step-image-edit-2 were retired on October 10, 2026 and stopped serving requests |
| Evidence note | documented the free preview rows are read from the vendor pricing page; the platform terms say limited-time Trial Credits may be given to new users with validity set when issued, and no vendor page states an amount or expiry; the identity document of the overseas platform is unverified |
| Parsed numbers |
|
Evidence 13
| date | source | what it proved |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-28 | platform.stepfun.ai/docs/en/guides/pricing/details | a speech chat preview model is listed Free (limited time) |
| 2026-10-28 | platform.stepfun.ai/docs/en/guides/pricing/details | step-3.5-flash list price per 1M tokens in USD |
| 2026-10-28 | platform.stepfun.ai/docs/en/guides/pricing/details | individual accounts need identity verification before a rate tier is assigned |
| 2026-10-28 | platform.stepfun.ai/docs/en/guides/pricing/details | the lowest tier has concurrency 5, 100 RPM and 500,000 TPM |
| 2026-10-28 | platform.stepfun.ai/docs/en/guides/pricing/intro.md | free credit is consumed before the paid balance and can expire |
| 2026-11-03 | platform.stepfun.com/docs/zh/quickstart/real-name-verificati | the mainland sibling platform asks for the holder's name and ID card number |
| 2026-11-03 | platform.stepfun.ai/docs/en/agreement/userservice.md | the platform terms allow limited-time trial credits for new users, with no amount stated |
| 2026-11-03 | www.answeroverflow.com/m/1509957427003523202 | a user reported a USD 100 voucher at account creation; reported, not vendor-confirmed, and another user in the thread saw none |
| 2026-11-03 | platform.stepfun.ai/step-plan/trial-rules | the Step Plan free trial promotion ended on August 24, 2026 |
| 2026-11-03 | platform.stepfun.com/docs/zh/quickstart/real-name-verificati | the mainland sibling platform completes verification by Alipay face recognition |
| 2026-11-03 | platform.stepfun.com/docs/zh/faq/common-questions | on the mainland sibling platform free-plan users must complete real-name verification and every user before paying |
| 2026-11-03 | platform.stepfun.ai/docs/en/guides/pricing/details | the overseas platform requires identity verification of individual accounts and names no document |
| 2026-11-03 | platform.stepfun.ai/docs/en/guides/pricing/details | the lowest tier has concurrency 5, 100 RPM and 500,000 TPM |
Unknown values 3
- egress metered: egress metering was not published
- per object cap stated: the field does not apply to this kind of offer
- retention stated: the field does not apply to this kind of offer
StepFun Step Plan
Coding subscriptions- Free allowance
- No free tier. Four paid tiers: Flash Mini 400M Credits at USD 6.99 a month, Flash Plus 1,600M at USD 9.99, Flash Pro 8,000M at USD 29, Flash Max 40,000M at USD 99.
- Verdict
- paidno free allowance; listed for its price
- Cost
- no price stated
- Identity
- cardcard required, no phone
- Binding limit
- retention-clampedmonthly Credits are cleared at the end of the month and do not roll over; the full month's Credits are issued at once on subscribing
- Evidence
- documented20 sources; a first-party page was read and the sentence quoted
- Freshness
- stale on 2026-11-30checked 2026-10-30 (live); stale on 2026-11-30
| Free tier | no free tier. Four paid tiers: Flash Mini 400M Credits at USD 6.99 a month, Flash Plus 1,600M at USD 9.99, Flash Pro 8,000M at USD 29, Flash Max 40,000M at USD 99. Credits convert at approximately USD 1 = 7M Credits unit credits; metered on request-count; the allowance is denominated in Credits, and the page states the conversion. |
|---|---|
| Price | none stated |
| Limits |
booster packs are available to active subscribers only and run on their own 30-day cycle: Small USD 6.99 for 400M Credits, Large USD 9.99 for 1,600M |
| Binding | retention-clamped the monthly clearance binds before any request rate does, because there is no request rate to bind: an unused allowance is lost at month end rather than carried |
| Identity | card registration takes an email address with an emailed verification code, or a Google account; the platform sign-in form offers 'Continue with Google' and 'Email verification code login', and a phone number is not required. There is no free route: use needs a paid subscription, and the checkout offers 'Pay with Stripe' (credit or debit card; the Step Plan page FAQ names Visa and Mastercard, the console subscription page FAQ names Alipay, UnionPay, Visa and Mastercard, plus corporate bank transfer for enterprises) or 'Pay with balance' (the account balance, topped up by credit or debit card). Whether the checkout asks for a billing address, a country or an identity check: unverified: behind a sign-up |
| Egress | not applicable |
| Retention | monthly Credits are cleared at the end of the month and do not roll over; booster-pack Credits expire on their own 30-day cycle (30 days) |
| Interface | rest, cli two documented Base URLs: https://api.stepfun.ai/step_plan for the Claude Code and Anthropic SDK shape, and https://api.stepfun.ai/step_plan/v1 for OpenAI SDK Chat Completions. The page states these are client configuration URLs and not full request URLs |
| Tooling | Claude Code, the Anthropic SDK, the OpenAI SDK, Trae, Cursor and OpenClaw are named on the page as supported clients |
| Composes with | pairs with any Anthropic-shaped or OpenAI-shaped agent; the monthly Credit allowance is the scarce link, and it is spent by the Step Plan Base URL rather than by the standard API channel, which has its own separate quota |
| Reliability | on 2026-10-30 the Step Plan page and the console subscription page showed every tier (Mini, Plus, Pro, Max) as 'Out of stock'; the vendor's notice states that Plan purchase quotas are released in limited daily batches adjusted to real-time service capacity, and that new free trials are closed. A subscription can be unavailable to buy on a given day |
| Notes | This record carried verdict: trial-only and confidence: unverified until 2026-10-22T04:14Z, on a 396-byte shell from www.stepfun.com/pricing. At USD 9.99 for 1,600M Credits, or about USD 228.6 of model usage, this is the cheapest plan in the market per unit of work and the strongest counter-example to the topic's 'nothing under USD 20 carries a usable allowance' conclusion. |
| Evidence note | documented the four tiers, the Credit allowances, the conversion rate, the two Base URLs and the no-rate-limit statement are all quoted from the vendor's own documentation page, read 2026-10-22 at 200 with 9444 bytes. No subscription was bought, so the allowance is the vendor's number and not a measurement. |
| Parsed numbers |
|
Evidence 20
| date | source | what it proved |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-22 | platform.stepfun.ai/docs/en/step-plan/overview.md | the four-tier ladder with monthly, quarterly and yearly prices: Flash Mini 400M Credits USD 6.99 / 18.99 / 69.99, Flash Plus 1,600M USD 9.99 / 26.99 / 95.99, Flash Pro 8,000M USD 29 / 79 / 289, Flash Max 40,000M USD 99 / 269 / 989; 'Credits convert to payment at approximately USD 1 = 7M Credits'; 'no time-window or request-frequency limits'; and the two Base URLs |
| 2026-10-22 | www.stepfun.com/pricing | a 2262-byte shell at HTTP 200 with no plan name and no price. This is the route the previous record used, and it is a marketing page that does not carry the documentation's ladder. It is a route note, not the finding |
| 2026-10-30 | platform.stepfun.ai/docs/en/agreement/userprivacy.md | registration takes an email address or a Google account; no phone number is named for account creation |
| 2026-10-30 | platform.stepfun.ai/_next/static/chunks/app/layout-41354ddad | the platform sign-in form (English strings of the site bundle) offers Google sign-in or an email verification code, with no phone field |
| 2026-10-30 | platform.stepfun.ai/docs/en/agreement/userprivacy.md | account verification at registration is a verification code sent to the email address |
| 2026-10-30 | platform.stepfun.ai/docs/en/step-plan/paid-service-agreement | the paid subscription is activated by registering an account, choosing a plan and completing payment |
| 2026-10-30 | platform.stepfun.ai/_next/static/chunks/8979-74ebcf993cc3dae | the Step Plan checkout's Stripe channel takes a credit or debit card |
| 2026-10-30 | platform.stepfun.ai/_next/static/chunks/8979-74ebcf993cc3dae | the Step Plan checkout's second channel pays from the account balance |
| 2026-10-30 | platform.stepfun.ai/docs/en/step-plan/overview | the documentation names two payment routes for a subscription: Stripe, or the account balance |
| 2026-10-30 | platform.stepfun.ai/_next/static/chunks/5412-f823cf7b36c5d1c | the Step Plan page FAQ (English) names Visa and Mastercard credit cards, and corporate bank transfer for enterprises |
| 2026-10-30 | platform.stepfun.ai/plan-subscribe | the console subscription page FAQ names Alipay, UnionPay, Visa and Mastercard, and corporate bank transfer for enterprises |
| 2026-10-30 | platform.stepfun.ai/_next/static/chunks/app/layout-41354ddad | an account-balance top-up is paid by credit or debit card |
| 2026-10-30 | platform.stepfun.ai/step-plan | the rendered Step Plan page showed each of the four plan cards as Out of stock on 2026-10-30 |
| 2026-10-30 | platform.stepfun.ai/_next/static/chunks/5412-f823cf7b36c5d1c | the Step Plan page notice states purchase quotas are released in limited daily batches and new free trials are closed |
| 2026-10-30 | platform.stepfun.ai/_next/static/chunks/5412-f823cf7b36c5d1c | the daily purchase quota follows service capacity |
| 2026-10-30 | platform.stepfun.ai/step-plan | a second rendering of the Step Plan page on 2026-10-30 also showed all four plan cards as Out of stock |
| 2026-10-30 | platform.stepfun.ai/plan-subscribe | the console subscription page (Compare Plans) showed Mini, Plus, Pro and Max as Out of stock on 2026-10-30 |
| 2026-10-30 | platform.stepfun.ai/step-plan | the free-trial channel is closed; the only offer is the paid four-tier ladder, so no free allowance exists |
| 2026-10-30 | platform.stepfun.ai/docs/en/step-plan/overview | the allowance is denominated in one unit, Credits |
| 2026-10-30 | platform.stepfun.ai/docs/en/step-plan/overview | the four-tier ladder, Credit allowances, conversion rate, month-end clearance, booster packs, no-RPM statement and the two Base URLs are unchanged on 2026-10-30 |
Unknown values 2
- egress terms: the field does not apply to this kind of offer
- per object cap stated: the field does not apply to this kind of offer
Corrections
- 2026-10-22 StepFun's USD 9.99 tier was live, and a month-old date error hid the cheapest plan in the market