Model comparison
GPT-5 vs Step 5 Preview
GPT-5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.9 to 47.9 on the Noometry Index. Step 5 Preview costs 2.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GPT-5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 18 shared benchmarks.
StepFunSummary
- They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-5 scores higher in 5 categories and Step 5 Preview in 4 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in long context, where GPT-5 leads 69.5 to 44.5.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is ProofBench: 18% for GPT-5 and 42% for Step 5 Preview.
- Step 5 Preview is cheaper at $1 / $2.70 per million input/output tokens, against $1.25 / $10 for GPT-5.
- Step 5 Preview accepts more context: 1.02M tokens versus 400K.
Side by side
| GPT-5 | Step 5 Preview | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | StepFun |
| Noometry Index | 50.9 | 47.9 |
| Released | 2025-08-07 | 2026-09-16 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 400K | 1.02M |
| Max output | 128K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $1.25 | $1 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $10 | $2.70 |
| Results tracked | 69 | 18 |
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Category by category
Coding Step 5 Preview leads
GPT-5: 50.3 (#47), Step 5 Preview: 51.8 (#36)
| Benchmark | GPT-5 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1418 | 1564 |
| SciCode | 42.9% | 58.9% |
| LMArena Coding | 1436 | 1480 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 73.6% | — |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | 65% | — |
| Aider Polyglot | 88% | — |
| GSO | 6.9% | — |
| WeirdML | 60.7% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 1,162 | — |
| AlgoTune | 1.67 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
GPT-5: 33.1 (#56), Step 5 Preview: —
| Benchmark | GPT-5 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 49.6% | — |
| GDPval | 34.8% | — |
| Remote Labor Index | 1.7% | — |
| DeepResearch Bench | 49.6% | — |
| BALROG | 32.8% | — |
| LMArena Search | 1133 | — |
| METR Time Horizons | 69.6% | — |
Reasoning Step 5 Preview leads
GPT-5: 38.3 (#64), Step 5 Preview: 40.0 (#57)
| Benchmark | GPT-5 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 12.6% | 20.9% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1416 | 1465 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 9.9% | — |
| SimpleBench | 56.7% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 72.7% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 65.7% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 37% | — |
| EnigmaEval | 10.5% | — |
| EBR-Bench | 12.7% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 23% | — |
| DTBench | 90.7% | — |
| LMCA | 40% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 150 | — |
| ForecastBench | 61.4 | — |
Math GPT-5 leads
GPT-5: 55.0 (#44), Step 5 Preview: 46.1 (#72)
| Benchmark | GPT-5 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| ProofBench | 18% | 42% |
| LMArena Math | 1407 | 1470 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 55.4% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 22% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 91.4% | — |
| Omni-MATH | 64.7% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 98.1% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 32.4% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 12.5% | — |
Knowledge GPT-5 leads
GPT-5: 56.6 (#43), Step 5 Preview: 41.2 (#112)
| Benchmark | GPT-5 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1419 | 1470 |
| GPQA Diamond | 86.2% | — |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 25.3% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 50.1% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 86.3% | — |
| Confabulations | 10.3% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 14.7% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 79.2% | — |
Multimodal GPT-5 leads
GPT-5: 46.8 (#13), Step 5 Preview: 41.0 (#41)
| Benchmark | GPT-5 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1232 | 1267 |
| GeoBench | 81% | — |
| VPCT | 66% | — |
Multilingual Step 5 Preview leads
GPT-5: 51.4 (#110), Step 5 Preview: 53.8 (#54)
| Benchmark | GPT-5 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1397 | 1432 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1422 | 1519 |
| LMArena Russian | 1406 | 1436 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1399 | 1439 |
| LMArena French | 1410 | — |
| LMArena German | 1416 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1409 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1360 | — |
Instruction Following Step 5 Preview leads
GPT-5: 73.8 (#113), Step 5 Preview: 76.0 (#50)
| Benchmark | GPT-5 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1388 | 1444 |
| IFEval | 87.5% | — |
Long Context GPT-5 leads
GPT-5: 69.5 (#2), Step 5 Preview: 44.5 (#64)
| Benchmark | GPT-5 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1399 | 1455 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 97.2% | — |
Writing & Preference Too close to call
GPT-5: 63.4 (#65), Step 5 Preview: 62.8 (#71)
| Benchmark | GPT-5 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1406 | 1442 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1365 | 1410 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1426 | 1447 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 86% | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1627 | — |
| WildBench | 85.7% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is GPT-5 better than Step 5 Preview?
GPT-5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.9 to 47.9 on the Noometry Index. Step 5 Preview costs 2.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GPT-5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, GPT-5 or Step 5 Preview?
Step 5 Preview is cheaper. It lists at $1 per million input tokens and $2.70 per million output tokens; GPT-5 lists at $1.25 and $10.
Is GPT-5 or Step 5 Preview better for coding?
Step 5 Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 51.8 versus 50.3 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Step 5 Preview does, with 1.02M tokens against 400K.
How many benchmarks do GPT-5 and Step 5 Preview share?
18 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-5 has 69 scored results on Noometry and Step 5 Preview has 18.