Skip to main content
StepAudio 2.5 Realtime is an end-to-end speech-to-speech model served over a WebSocket Realtime API. It takes streaming audio or text and responds with streaming audio and a matching text transcript, with no separate speech-to-text or text-to-speech stage in between. It understands both the words and the tone behind them, such as hesitation, a slight laugh, or frustration, and replies with natural, expressive speech in real time.

Specifications

Model ID

stepaudio-2.5-realtime

Endpoint

wss://api.stepfun.ai/v1/realtime (WebSocket)

Input

Audio or text

Output

Audio and text

Audio format

PCM16, 24 kHz, mono

Languages

English

Capabilities

  • Speech-to-speech in real time: Audio flows in and out over a single WebSocket connection, so the model replies with spoken audio directly instead of routing through separate transcription and synthesis steps. This keeps latency low enough for natural back-and-forth conversation.
  • Paralinguistic understanding: For audio input, the model interprets vocal cues such as intonation, pacing, hesitation, and laughter in addition to the spoken words, capturing a speaker’s emotional state and intent that a plain transcript does not represent.
  • Natural turn-taking: Server-side voice activity detection (VAD) detects when the speaker starts and stops talking, so the model can reply at the right moment and be interrupted mid-response, the way a person can.
  • Persona and style control: Session instructions define the assistant’s personality, speaking style, and boundaries, and can shape audio behavior such as keeping replies short or speaking warmly, maintaining a consistent voice throughout a conversation.

Common use cases

  • Voice agents for customer support: Handle spoken customer conversations end to end, reading tone and intent and responding with natural speech for support, account servicing, and triage.
  • Live assistants: Power hands-free assistants that listen and reply in real time for scheduling, guidance, and question answering.
  • Interactive phone and IVR systems: Replace rigid menu trees with a conversational agent that callers can speak to naturally and interrupt at any time.

Voices

The following system voices are available. Set the voice with session.update before the model produces audio.
Always set voice explicitly in session.update. Only the voice IDs listed above are valid for this model; other values are rejected with a 400 error. A session’s voice cannot be changed once the model has produced audio.

Quick Start

This section walks you through your first Realtime session, from creating an API key to sending a turn and saving the spoken reply.

Set up your environment

1

Create an API key

Create a key on the StepFun API platform.
2

Set your API key as an environment variable

3

Install a WebSocket client

All sessions connect to wss://api.stepfun.ai/v1/realtime, with the model passed as a query parameter.

Send a spoken turn and receive a spoken reply

This example downloads a sample customer question (a short English audio clip), streams it to the model as audio input, and saves the model’s spoken reply to a WAV file.

Pricing

Realtime sessions are billed by tokens: 1.50per1Minputtokensand1.50 per 1M input tokens and 10.00 per 1M output tokens. See the pricing page for details.

Audio Models Overview

Compare all speech models and choose the right one.

StepAudio 2.5 Chat

Speech understanding over the Chat Completion API when you do not need streaming audio output.