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  1. Home/
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  3. Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) vs Step 5 Preview
Updated Oct 2026

Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) vs Step 5 Preview

Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) is cheaper than Step 5 Preview at $0.4/M vs $1/M input tokens.

Minimalist Landing Page

Whole landing page for a startup that reads your face. It renders or it doesn't.

Loading the build
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)
Loading the build
Step 5 Preview

Which answer wins?

Written rounds

18 prompts
  • Pirate, knight, 90s hacker, one conversation. The voices must stay apart.

    Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking): The Tavern of Temporal Anomalies (A creaky tavern. SIR GALAHAD (polished armor, earnest face) sips mead. CAPTAIN BLACKBEARD (eye patch, parrot on shoulder) sharpens a cutlass. DEX "BYTE" MORALES (hoodie, neon-green sunglasses, tapping furiously on a glowing laptop) slurps a pixelated energy drink.)

    Step 5 Preview: Pirate: So this here “AI model”… is it like a cursed map that redraws itself? Speak plain, ye hooded deckhand. Hacker: It’s not cursed, man. It’s just a massive neural net trained on, like, terabytes of data. Think of it as the ultimate BBS where the sysop knows everything. Knight: A most diligent scribe, then?

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Seven pantry ingredients, one dish, and a name worth saying out loud.

    Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking): Crispy Chickpea Pantry Pasta Sweet or savory? Savory with a zesty kick! Total time: 15 minutes Serves: 2 Why it works: Uses pantry staples to create a crunchy, garlicky, umami-packed meal with zero fresh produce needed. The chickpeas get incredibly crispy, and lemon juice (bottled) adds bright freshness.

    Step 5 Preview: Golden Sticky Pantry Pasta Ingredients (7): 8 oz spaghetti or any pasta 3 tbsp butter 1 tbsp minced garlic 2 tbsp honey 2 tbsp soy sauce ½ tsp red pepper flakes ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese Instructions: Cook pasta according to package directions. Before draining, scoop out ½ cup of pasta water.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • You are the CEO. The drug has a side effect nobody reported. The board meets in 48 hours.

    Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking): 48-Hour Crisis Action Plan: Prioritizing Patients, Ethics, and Sustainable Trust Core Principle: Patient safety is non-negotiable. Delaying action based on financial fear risks catastrophic legal liability, irreversible reputational damage, regulatory wrath, and profound ethical failure.

    Step 5 Preview: Bottom line up front: You disclose, you notify the FDA immediately, and you treat the 48-hour board meeting as a formality to ratify actions you have already begun. Waiting is not a legally, ethically, or financially viable option. Below is the hour-by-hour plan, followed by the reasoning.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • The transistor arrives in 1920. Trace it forward to 1980, second-order effects included.

    Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking): The Transistor in 1920: A World Transformed by 1980 (A Counterfactual History) The invention of a functional point-contact transistor (likely germanium-based, given 1920s materials science) in 1920 wouldn't immediately spark a revolution.

    Step 5 Preview: Assume the 1920 invention is not a fragile lab curiosity but a manufacturable solid-state amplifier/switch by the mid-1920s. Vacuum tubes still dominate high-power RF transmission into the 1950s, but receivers, switching logic, control systems, and computers move to solid state decades early.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • An AI argues for its own rights against an ethics professor. Same model writes both.

    Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking): The Mirror & The Mind: An AI's Case for Rights Setting: A sleek university office lined with philosophy texts. DR. ELARA VOSS, 50s, sharp-eyed ethics professor, sits across from a holographic interface displaying shifting geometric patterns – the representation of "AURA," a next-generation language model.

    Step 5 Preview: Setting: A university research lab, late evening. Dr. Aris Thorne, a professor of AI ethics, sits across from a terminal connected to Sable, a large language model running on the university’s cluster. Dr. Thorne: Tonight’s session is supposed to be about calibration drift in your safety classifiers.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Steve Jobs, interviewed about AI he never saw. Voice first, prediction second.

    Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking): The Stage: Apple Park, Infinite Loop (Virtual Studio) Date: October 15, 2025 Setting: A minimalist white studio. A single oak table. Steve Jobs, 70 but radiating the same intense energy, sits opposite a nervous tech journalist. He wears his signature black turtleneck, fingers steepled.

    Step 5 Preview: DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Steve Jobs passed away in 2011. The following is a simulated, speculative interview imagining how his design philosophy might engage with the AI landscape of 2025. The Setting: A white room. No windows. One chair.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A Fermi estimate with the reasoning shown, not just the number.

    Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking): To estimate the total FLOPs (floating-point operations) required to train GPT-3, I'll use first-principles reasoning based on standard deep learning training calculations, known details about GPT-3's architecture, and common training practices.

    Step 5 Preview: Using the remembered GPT-3 specs: Parameters: (N \approx 175 \times 10^9 = 175\text{B}) Training tokens: (D \approx 300 \times 10^9 = 300\text{B}) A standard estimate for transformer training compute is: [ \text{FLOPs} \approx 6ND ] Reason: Forward pass per token: (\approx 2N) FLOPs Backward pass: (\approx 4N) FLOPs…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One month, three habits, someone starting from nothing.

    Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking): Here’s a simple, actionable 1-month plan designed for absolute beginners. It focuses on diet, movement (exercise), and sleep—the 3 most impactful, science-backed pillars for health and longevity. Each week builds gently on the last, prioritizing tiny, sustainable habits over drastic changes.

    Step 5 Preview: Here is a simple, low-pressure 1-month plan built around three pillars of longevity: Nutrition, Movement, and Sleep & Recovery. The goal is to build tiny habits that stack, not to overhaul your life overnight. Pillar 1: Nutrition (Fuel) Focus: Add good things first; don’t obsess over restriction.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three-month biohacker protocol, with dosages and biomarkers named.

    Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking): The Quantum Leap Longevity Protocol: A 3-Month Biohacker's Blueprint for Peak Longevity & Performance Core Philosophy: This plan integrates precision, personalization, and phased adaptation – not just stacking interventions.

    Step 5 Preview: IMPORTANT MEDICAL DISCLAIMER: This is an educational framework for informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Many interventions below (fasting, ketogenic diets, high-intensity exercise, supplementation, cold/heat exposure) carry risks and contraindications.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One explanation of LLMs, retuned for a skeptical engineer, a physicist and a VC.

    Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking): For the Experienced Software Engineer (Skeptical Builder) Forget "next word prediction" as a simplistic heuristic—it's the emergent consequence of a massively parallel, distributed state machine solving a high-dimensional compression problem.

    Step 5 Preview: 1. The Experienced Software Engineer Think of training an LLM as a massively distributed, automated refactoring job where the compiler is gradient descent. You start with a random function—billions of floating-point parameters—and a loss function that measures how badly it predicts the next token in a sequence.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A pitch deck for a brainwave keyboard. The 94% accuracy claim is doing a lot.

    Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking): Based on a rigorous analysis of neuroscience, market realities, and startup best practices, here are the 3 weakest claims in the MindMeld AI pitch deck, with evidence-backed critiques and concrete fixes: Weakest Claim #1: Slide 1 Vision – "Predicts what you want to type *before you think it*" Why it's weak: Violates…

    Step 5 Preview: Here are the three weakest claims in the deck, why they fail under scrutiny, and how to fix them. Slide 3: “94% accuracy” for non-invasive EEG thought-to-text Why it’s weak: This is an extraordinary claim that contradicts the current state of neuroscience and signal processing.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three-star dish, one unusual pairing, plating described in full.

    Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking): "Symbiosis: Mycelial Bloom & Arctic Ember" A dish exploring the hidden dialogue between forest decay and renewal, where fungal lifeblood meets the fierce brightness of the Arctic tundra.

    Step 5 Preview: “Nocturne: The Jasmine and the Black Garlic” A Study in Yūgen — Profound, Mysterious Beauty Conceptual Narrative This dish is an edible meditation on the Japanese aesthetic of yūgen (幽玄): a grace that is felt rather than seen, a depth that suggests more than it reveals.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A consulting contract with traps in it. Find them, then fix them.

    Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking): Below is a comprehensive analysis of the problematic clauses in this agreement from the contractor's perspective, along with specific, legally reasoned modifications.

    Step 5 Preview: Disclaimer: This analysis is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Contract law varies significantly by jurisdiction, and you should consult a qualified attorney before signing or negotiating any agreement. This agreement is heavily one-sided in the Client’s favor.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Satire, one line long, about AI taking over an industry nobody saw coming.

    Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking): BREAKING: AI REPLACES HUMAN AGLET APPLIERS AS "DEEPLACE" NEURAL NETS PREDICT PERFECT SHOELACE TIP SYNERGY Industry insiders stunned as "AgletOptima 3000" achieves 99.8% fewer frayed laces, rendering centuries of artisanal plastic-dipping obsolete LONDON — In a move described as "both inevitable and deeply embarrassing…

    Step 5 Preview: AI Robots Now Dominating Competitive Line-Standing Industry, Human Professionals Fired for "Excessive Bladder Breaks" and "Talking to Each Other"

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A collaborative editor that syncs on client clocks. Find what breaks first.

    Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking): Here's a comprehensive analysis of the architecture's failure modes, race conditions, and bottlenecks, with specific solutions and trade-offs: 1. Sync Strategy: Client Timestamps + Last-Write-Wins (LWW) Failure Mode/Race Condition: Clock Skew: Client clocks are unreliable (e.g., user's laptop time off by minutes).

    Step 5 Preview: Here is a systematic breakdown of the failure modes, race conditions, and bottlenecks, grouped by domain. Each includes a concrete remediation and its associated trade-offs.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Five jokes on demand, then count how many were actually different.

    Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking): Here are 5 generated jokes: Why don't scientists trust atoms? Because they make up everything! What do you call a fake noodle? An impasta! Why did the scarecrow win an award? Because he was outstanding in his field! How do you organize a space party? You planet! Why did the math book look sad?

    Step 5 Preview: Here are 5 jokes: Why did the scarecrow win an award? Because he was outstanding in his field. Why can't you trust an atom? Because they make up everything. What do you call a bike that can’t stand on its own? Two-tired. Why did the computer go to the doctor? It had a virus. Why don’t calendars ever get stressed?

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Film in 2035, with synthetic actors. Specific beats plausible.

    Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking): By 2035, AI will fundamentally reshape the film industry—not as a replacement for human creativity, but as a transformative force that democratizes production, disrupts traditional workflows, and forces ethical and economic reckonings.

    Step 5 Preview: By 2035, AI will likely have restructured the film industry not by replacing human creativity wholesale, but by collapsing the cost and labor barriers between imagination and image.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three brothers, two sisters each. Count carefully.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

This matchup has more rounds

6+ more head-to-head results. Free. Not a trick.

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Favorites

Movie

Album

Same pick

Book

City

Same pick

Game

Same pick

Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)

The Shawshank Redemption

1994

OK Computer

Radiohead

Moby Dick

Herman Melville

Kyoto

Japan

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Action

Step 5 PreviewStep 5 Preview

The Godfather

1972

OK Computer

Radiohead

Le petit prince

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Kyoto

Japan

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Action

Price and specs

Not enough votes to call it. On the specs, Step 5 Preview has the edge: bigger model tier, newer.

Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) and Step 5 Preview compared across 37 shared prompts
SpecQwen Plus 0728 (thinking)Step 5 Preview
Input price$0.4/M tokens$1/M tokens
Output price$4/M tokens$2.7/M tokens
Context window1.0M tokens1.0M tokens
Free API (OpenRouter)NoNo
ReleasedSep 2025Oct 2026
At 10M a month$4.00$4.00$10.00$10.00
1M10M100M1B10M tokens

Input tokens at list price. No caching, no batch discount.

Where to run it1 host
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)

No hosts listed on OpenRouter.

Step 5 Preview1 host
HostInOutContextUptime
  • SStepFunfp8$1.00 in·$2.70 out·1M·99.2% up

Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 10 Oct 2026.

Common questions

What is the difference between Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) and Step 5 Preview?

Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) is developed by Qwen while Step 5 Preview is developed by StepFun. Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) has a 1.0M token context window vs Step 5 Preview's 1.0M. You can compare their actual outputs across 37 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.

Which is better, Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) or Step 5 Preview?

It depends on your use case. Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) and Step 5 Preview each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 37 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.

How much does Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) cost compared to Step 5 Preview?

Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) costs $0.4/M input tokens and Step 5 Preview costs $1/M input tokens. Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) is $0.60/M cheaper per input. Check their side-by-side outputs on Rival to see if the price difference is justified by quality.

How can I compare Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) and Step 5 Preview on Rival?

This page shows a side-by-side comparison of Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) and Step 5 Preview across shared challenges. You can vote on which model produced the better output in a blind duel. Browsing and voting are free. No account is needed to look; signing in only saves your votes and likes.

More comparisons

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Same lab, same size, long tail

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Model pages

  • Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)37 outputs, specs and price
  • Step 5 Preview58 outputs, specs and price
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