OctoAI vs StepFun: Token Pricing, Speed & Intelligence
Full comparison of OctoAI and StepFun — live token pricing, latency, throughput, context window, strengths, weaknesses, and best use cases. Rates sourced from public APIs — verify before use.
OctoAI
Acquired by NVIDIA — OctoAI inference is now available via NVIDIA NIM
OctoAI was acquired by NVIDIA in 2024 and its inference platform has been integrated into NVIDIA NIM (Inference Microservices). Existing OctoAI customers have been migrated to NVIDIA NIM, which provides the same optimised open-weight model inference on NVIDIA GPU infrastructure with TensorRT-LLM acceleration. New users should use NVIDIA NIM directly for access to Llama 4, Mistral, Qwen3, and other open-weight models.
StepFun
Step-5 — Chinese frontier LLM with strong multimodal and reasoning capability
StepFun is a Chinese AI startup developing the Step model series. Step-5 Preview is the frontier tier, competing with top Chinese and international models on reasoning and multimodal benchmarks. Step-3.7 Flash is the efficient tier for cost-sensitive workloads. StepFun is backed by Tencent and focuses on enterprise and developer API access.
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Live token pricing
Strengths and weaknesses
OctoAI
StepFun
Key differentiators
OctoAI's inference technology lives on inside NVIDIA NIM — the same hardware-aware optimisation, now with TensorRT-LLM acceleration and NVIDIA's global GPU infrastructure behind it.
Step-5 is StepFun's frontier reasoning model with multimodal capability, backed by Tencent — positioned as a competitive alternative to Qwen and ERNIE for Chinese enterprise workloads.
Frequently asked questions
OctoAI FAQs
What happened to OctoAI?
OctoAI was acquired by NVIDIA in 2024. Its inference platform has been integrated into NVIDIA NIM (Inference Microservices). Existing customers were migrated to NIM, which provides the same optimised open-weight model inference on NVIDIA GPU infrastructure.
Can I still use the OctoAI API?
The original OctoAI API endpoints have been deprecated. Existing OctoAI customers should migrate to NVIDIA NIM, which provides equivalent functionality with TensorRT-LLM optimisation and access to the full NVIDIA model catalog.
What is NVIDIA NIM?
NVIDIA NIM (Inference Microservices) are containerized AI inference packages optimized for NVIDIA GPUs using TensorRT-LLM. They can be accessed via the NVIDIA API catalog at build.nvidia.com or self-hosted on any NVIDIA GPU infrastructure.
StepFun FAQs
What is StepFun?
StepFun is a Chinese AI startup backed by Tencent, developing the Step model series. Step-5 Preview is the frontier tier and Step-3.7 Flash is the efficient tier, both available via the StepFun API.
How much does the StepFun API cost?
Step-5 Preview is $1.00/$2.70 per 1M input/output tokens. Step-3.7 Flash is $0.20/$1.15 per 1M tokens. See platform.stepfun.com/docs/pricing for current rates.
Does Step-5 support multimodal input?
Yes. Step-5 Preview supports text, image, and video understanding in a single API call, making it suitable for multimodal enterprise applications.
Provider resources
OctoAI — Acquired by NVIDIA — OctoAI inference is now available via NVIDIA NIM
OctoAI was acquired by NVIDIA in 2024 and its inference platform has been integrated into NVIDIA NIM (Inference Microservices). Existing OctoAI customers have been migrated to NVIDIA NIM, which provides the same optimised open-weight model inference on NVIDIA GPU infrastructure with TensorRT-LLM acceleration. New users should use NVIDIA NIM directly for access to Llama 4, Mistral, Qwen3, and other open-weight models.
OctoAI's inference technology lives on inside NVIDIA NIM — the same hardware-aware optimisation, now with TensorRT-LLM acceleration and NVIDIA's global GPU infrastructure behind it.
StepFun — Step-5 — Chinese frontier LLM with strong multimodal and reasoning capability
StepFun is a Chinese AI startup developing the Step model series. Step-5 Preview is the frontier tier, competing with top Chinese and international models on reasoning and multimodal benchmarks. Step-3.7 Flash is the efficient tier for cost-sensitive workloads. StepFun is backed by Tencent and focuses on enterprise and developer API access.
Step-5 is StepFun's frontier reasoning model with multimodal capability, backed by Tencent — positioned as a competitive alternative to Qwen and ERNIE for Chinese enterprise workloads.
Key strengths compared
OctoAI
- Now backed by NVIDIA's full GPU infrastructure and TensorRT-LLM stack
- Seamless migration path for existing OctoAI customers to NVIDIA NIM
- Access to NVIDIA's full open-weight model catalog via NIM
- OctoAI as a standalone product no longer exists — new users should use NVIDIA NIM directly
- Migration required for any OctoAI-specific API integrations
StepFun
- Step-5 Preview is competitive with top Chinese frontier models on reasoning benchmarks
- Step-3.7 Flash at $0.20/$1.15 per 1M tokens offers strong value for efficient inference
- Multimodal capability on Step-5 (text, image, video understanding)
- Newer entrant — smaller track record than established frontier labs
- Documentation and support primarily in Chinese
Key weaknesses compared
OctoAI
- OctoAI as a standalone product no longer exists — new users should use NVIDIA NIM directly
- Migration required for any OctoAI-specific API integrations
- Self-hosted path requires NVIDIA GPU infrastructure investment
StepFun
- Newer entrant — smaller track record than established frontier labs
- Documentation and support primarily in Chinese
- Limited international ecosystem and third-party integrations
Provider category context
OctoAI is a inference api, founded in 2022. StepFun is a frontier lab, founded in 2023. OctoAI as an inference API provider hosts open-weight models — typically offering lower prices for equivalent capability tiers. StepFun as a frontier lab trains and serves proprietary models with capabilities not available elsewhere.
How to choose between them
Choose OctoAI if you need now backed by nvidia's full gpu infrastructure and tensorrt-llm stack. Choose StepFun if you need Chinese NLP. For high-volume production workloads, run a cost comparison using the token pricing table above with your actual prompt/completion token ratio — the cheapest provider depends heavily on your input-to-output token ratio.