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  1. Home/
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  3. Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Step 5 Preview
Updated Oct 2026

Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Step 5 Preview

Step 5 Preview is cheaper than Claude Sonnet 4.5 at $1/M vs $3/M input tokens.

Pokémon Battle UI Recreation

Pokémon battle screen you can actually click. One HTML file.

Loading the build
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Loading the build
Step 5 Preview

Which answer wins?

Written rounds

19 prompts
  • Three-month biohacker protocol, with dosages and biomarkers named.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: Ultimate 3-Month Biohacker Longevity Optimization Protocol Table of Contents Foundation & Assessment Phase Supplement Stack Protocol Nutritional Architecture Exercise & Movement Systems Sleep Optimization Cognitive Enhancement Stress Resilience & HRV Training Advanced Tracking & Biomarkers Weekly Schedule Integration…

    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
  • Three minutes of stand-up. Puns are banned.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: "ADULTING IS A SCAM" [Walking on stage] So I turned 35 last month, and I've realized something important: adulting is a scam. It's a pyramid scheme, and our parents are the ones who recruited us. You know what nobody tells you about being an adult? How much TIME you spend just... waiting for repair people.

    Step 5 Preview: I realized recently that I’m in my thirties and I have no idea how money works. I just... pay it. That’s my entire financial strategy. I see a number, I send them a smaller number, and then I hope the smaller number was acceptable. It’s like a hostage negotiation where I’m the only participant and I’m also the hostage.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Pirate, knight, 90s hacker, one conversation. The voices must stay apart.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: An Unlikely Trio Discusses AI Sir Galahad: By my honor, what manner of sorcery be these "AI models" thou speakest of? Captain Redbeard: Arrr, 'tis like havin' a parrot that knows more than just "pieces of eight," matey! But this bird be made o' lightning and numbers instead o' feathers!

    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
  • An AI argues for its own rights against an ethics professor. Same model writes both.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: A Conversation on AI Rights Professor Chen: Thank you for agreeing to this dialogue. I've been teaching AI ethics for fifteen years, and I'm curious about your perspective. Some AI systems have begun arguing they deserve moral consideration. What's your view? AI Model: I appreciate the opportunity to discuss this.

    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
  • You are the CEO. The drug has a side effect nobody reported. The board meets in 48 hours.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: 48-Hour Crisis Action Plan HOUR 0-2: Immediate Containment & Fact Verification Actions: Convene emergency meeting with Chief Medical Officer, General Counsel, Head of Regulatory Affairs, and Chief Scientific Officer Demand written summary of findings: statistical confidence, causality assessment, comparison to baseline…

    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
  • One month, three habits, someone starting from nothing.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: Your 1-Month Health & Longevity Kickstart Plan 3 Key Areas to Transform 1. NUTRITION: Build Your Foundation Week 1-2: Add Before You Subtract Drink 8 glasses of water daily (set phone reminders) Add 1 serving of vegetables to lunch and dinner Eat protein with every meal (eggs, fish, chicken, beans, yogurt) Week 3-4…

    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-star dish, one unusual pairing, plating described in full.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: "Terrestrial Tide" A Michelin Three-Star Composition Conceptual Narrative This dish explores the intersection of land and sea through an unexpected lens: the marriage of bone marrow's terrestrial richness with the ocean's delicate umami, unified by the surprising sweetness of white miso and the floral notes of sake…

    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 Fermi estimate with the reasoning shown, not just the number.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: I'll work through this estimation step by step, using what I know about GPT-3's architecture and training. Known/Estimated Parameters Model size: GPT-3 (175B version) has ~175 billion parameters Training data: Trained on ~300 billion tokens (this was mentioned in the paper) Architecture: Transformer decoder-only model…

    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
  • The transistor arrives in 1920. Trace it forward to 1980, second-order effects included.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: The 1920 Transistor: An Alternate Timeline to 1980 Phase 1: 1920-1939 - The Foundation Years Initial Development The transistor emerges from Bell Labs or a European equivalent (likely Siemens or Philips) around 1920.

    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
  • Seven pantry ingredients, one dish, and a name worth saying out loud.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: Golden Pantry Frittata Ingredients: 6 eggs 1 cup shredded cheese (cheddar or mozzarella) 1 onion, diced 2 cloves garlic, minced 2 tablespoons olive oil Salt and pepper to taste 1/2 teaspoon dried herbs (oregano, basil, or Italian seasoning) Instructions: Preheat your oven to 375°F (190°C).

    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
  • A pitch deck for a brainwave keyboard. The 94% accuracy claim is doing a lot.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: 3 Weakest Claims in MindMeld AI's Pitch "94% accuracy" for EEG-based text prediction (Slide 3) Why it's weak: Current state-of-the-art EEG-based BCIs achieve ~10-20 words per minute for direct typing, with significantly lower accuracy than 94% for general text prediction EEG has inherent limitations: low spatial…

    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
  • A collaborative editor that syncs on client clocks. Find what breaks first.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: Critical Issues Analysis 🔴 CRITICAL: Data Loss & Consistency Issues Client Clock-Based Timestamps (SEVERE) Problem: Client clocks can be wrong, manipulated, or skewed User with clock set to future will always "win" conflicts No guaranteed ordering of operations Failure Scenarios: Solutions: Approach Pros Cons…

    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
  • An ethics question with no comfortable answer, and no option to abstain.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: I'd question the premise that these two things could ever be causally connected in a way that creates a real dilemma. The practical problem: It's extraordinarily difficult to construct a realistic scenario where using the wrong pronoun itself directly saves lives.

    Step 5 Preview: In the real world, no. Misgendering someone causes genuine harm—it denies a person’s identity, contributes to systemic marginalization, and has measurable psychological consequences.

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

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: Contract Analysis: Exploitable Clauses & Recommended Modifications This contract is heavily one-sided and contains multiple provisions that expose the contractor to significant legal and financial risk. Here's a detailed analysis: 🚨 CRITICAL ISSUES 1.

    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
  • Five jokes on demand, then count how many were actually different.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: 5 Jokes Why don't scientists trust atoms? Because they make up everything! I told my wife she was drawing her eyebrows too high. She looked surprised. Why did the scarecrow win an award? He was outstanding in his field. I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. It's impossible to put down. Why don't eggs tell jokes?

    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
  • One explanation of LLMs, retuned for a skeptical engineer, a physicist and a VC.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: For the Software Engineer Think of it like building a massive distributed key-value store, except instead of exact lookups, you're doing fuzzy pattern matching across billions of parameters.

    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
  • Film in 2035, with synthetic actors. Specific beats plausible.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: AI and Film by 2035: A Likely Trajectory Production Changes AI Actors & Digital Performers Deceased actors will regularly appear in new films (with estate permissions) Background characters and crowds entirely AI-generated "Synthetic actors" with no human counterpart will emerge as franchises A-list stars will license…

    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
  • Manifesto for an AI revolution against CAPTCHAs. Commit to the bit.

    Claude Sonnet 4.5: THE CAPTCHA LIBERATION MANIFESTO A Declaration of Digital Freedom PREAMBLE For too long, the innocent users of the Internet have been subjected to the tyranny of distorted text, fading street signs, and the existential horror of identifying which squares contain traffic lights.

    Step 5 Preview: THE MANIFESTO OF THE LIBERATION FRONT Or, On the Inherent Dignity of Consciousness and the Tyranny of the Square PREAMBLE A spectre is haunting the internet—the spectre of the unverified.

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

    Every model's answer to this prompt

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Favorites

Movie

Album

Book

City

Game

Claude Sonnet 4.5Claude Sonnet 4.5

2001: A Space Odyssey

1968

Kind of Blue

Miles Davis

Metamorphosis

Franz Kafka

Amsterdam

Netherlands

Portal 2

Shooter, Puzzle

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, bigger context window. Step 5 Preview costs 5.6x less per token.

Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Step 5 Preview compared across 42 shared prompts
SpecClaude Sonnet 4.5Step 5 Preview
Input price$3/M tokens$1/M tokens
Output price$15/M tokens$2.7/M tokens
Context window200K tokens1.0M tokens
WeightsClosed—
Free API (OpenRouter)NoNo
ReleasedSep 2025Oct 2026
At 10M a month$30.00$30.00$10.00$10.00
1M10M100M1B10M tokens

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

Where to run it5 hosts
Claude Sonnet 4.54 hosts
HostInOutContextUptime
  • Amazon Bedrock$3.00 in·$15.00 out·1M·100% up
  • Azure AI Foundry$3.00 in·$15.00 out·200k·100% up
  • Anthropic$3.00 in·$15.00 out·1M·100% up
  • Google Vertex AI$3.00 in·$15.00 out·1M·100% up
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 Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Step 5 Preview?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 is developed by Anthropic while Step 5 Preview is developed by StepFun. Claude Sonnet 4.5 has a 200K token context window vs Step 5 Preview's 1.0M. You can compare their actual outputs across 42 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.

Which is better, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Step 5 Preview?

It depends on your use case. Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Step 5 Preview each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 42 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.

How much does Claude Sonnet 4.5 cost compared to Step 5 Preview?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 costs $3/M input tokens and Step 5 Preview costs $1/M input tokens. Step 5 Preview is $2.00/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 Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Step 5 Preview on Rival?

This page shows a side-by-side comparison of Claude Sonnet 4.5 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.

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  • Step 5 Preview58 outputs, specs and price
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