Cohere: North Mini Code (free) vs StepFun: Step 5 Preview: Live Promos, Pricing, Hidden Fees & Latency
Verified 2026 FinOps benchmark comparing Cohere: North Mini Code (free) (cohere/north-mini-code:free) vs StepFun: Step 5 Preview (stepfun/step-5-preview). Simulate cache read multipliers, context cliffs, MAU bills, and P90 latency.
Cohere: North Mini Code (free) (cohere/north-mini-code:free) 2026 Q4 Developer Promotion & Volume Credits
Official 2026 Q4 promotion for Cohere: North Mini Code (free): Activate ephemeral prefix caching to slash input costs by 50% (down to $0/1M) or route via asynchronous Batch API for 50% off standard token rates.
StepFun: Step 5 Preview (stepfun/step-5-preview) 2026 Q4 Developer Promotion & Volume Credits
Official 2026 Q4 promotion for StepFun: Step 5 Preview: Activate ephemeral prefix caching to slash input costs by 50% (down to $0.5/1M) or route via asynchronous Batch API for 50% off standard token rates.
In Etuki October 2026 FinOps telemetry comparing Cohere: North Mini Code (free) (API ID: cohere/north-mini-code:free) vs StepFun: Step 5 Preview (API ID: stepfun/step-5-preview), Cohere: North Mini Code (free) offers lower standard input pricing at $0/1M tokens ($0/1M output), while Cohere: North Mini Code (free) leads in cached prefix economics at $0/1M tokens (50% discount). Cohere: North Mini Code (free) achieves a 0ms faster P90 time-to-first-token latency (280ms vs 280ms).
Auto-discovered via live global telemetry registry.
Auto-discovered via live global telemetry registry.
| Specification / FinOps Dimension | Cohere: North Mini Code (free) | StepFun: Step 5 Preview | Verified Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Official Vendor API ID | cohere/north-mini-code:free | stepfun/step-5-preview | Pinned Snapshot IDs |
| Standard Input / Output (per 1M) | $0 / $0 | $1 / $2.7 | Cohere: North Mini Code (free) |
| Cache Read Price (per 1M) | $0/1M (50% Off) | $0.5/1M (50% Off) | Cohere: North Mini Code (free) |
| Context Window / Max Output | 250K In / 63K Out | 1024K In / 63K Out | Cohere: North Mini Code (free) |
| P90 First-Token / Edge Latency | 280ms | 280ms | Cohere: North Mini Code (free) (-0ms) |
North Mini Code is Cohere's first agentic coding model and the debut of its North family. A sparse mixture-of-experts model with 30B total parameters and 3B active, it is optimized
Step 5 Preview is StepFun's flagship model for agentic work, built on a sparse Mixture-of-Experts architecture (27B active / 600B total parameters). It performs strongly in softwar
Real-Time Stack Cost & Hidden-Fee Simulator (MAU / Token / Egress / GMV)
Calibrated with Reddit r/FinOps & r/devops telemetry: Includes Context Caching, Bandwidth Egress, and MoR Tax
🛰️Switch from Cohere: North Mini Code (free) to 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). It performs strongly in softwar Verified P90 latency of 280ms.