Gemma 4 26B A4B is cheaper than Step 5 Preview at $0.13/M vs $1/M input tokens.
Whole landing page for a startup that reads your face. It renders or it doesn't.
Which answer wins?
Pirate, knight, 90s hacker, one conversation. The voices must stay apart.
Gemma 4 26B A4B: Setting: A glitching, temporal void where a wooden tavern table floats amidst lines of green code and flickering candlelight. Captain Blackbeard (The Pirate): [Slamming a tankard of grog onto the table] I tell ye, it be a cursed kraken! A beast with a thousand eyes and no soul, livin’ inside the very air!
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?
Three minutes of stand-up. Puns are banned.
Gemma 4 26B A4B: (The comedian walks onto the stage, adjusts the mic, and looks at the audience with a slightly exhausted expression.) “How’s it going? Good? Good. I’m doing okay. I’m at that age now where my body has started making sound effects. You know what I mean? I don’t just sit down anymore. I announce my arrival.
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.
Three-month biohacker protocol, with dosages and biomarkers named.
Gemma 4 26B A4B: Disclaimer: I am an AI, not a doctor. The following plan involves potent physiological interventions, pharmacological agents, and extreme dietary shifts. Consult with a medical professional and perform baseline blood work (including ApoB, HbA1c, hs-CRP, Vitamin D, and Testosterone/Estradiol) before implementation.
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.
The transistor arrives in 1920. Trace it forward to 1980, second-order effects included.
Gemma 4 26B A4B: To trace this counterfactual, we must assume that the fundamental physics of solid-state semiconductors (the ability to control electron flow through crystals) was mastered during the vacuum tube era. This shifts the "Information Age" forward by nearly 30 years. Here is the timeline of implications from 1920 to 1980.
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.
Five-year LBO on a fictional HVAC business. Returns first, then the sensitivities.
Gemma 4 26B A4B: Financial Model (FY2026–FY2030) Entry Calculations (End of FY2025): Purchase Price (EV): $120\text{m} \times 12.0\text{x} = \$1,440\text{m}$ Transaction Fees: $1,440\text{m} \times 2\% = \$28.8\text{m}$ Total Uses: $\$1,440\text{m} + \$28.8\text{m} = \$1,468.8\text{m}$ Debt (Total 5.5x): $\$120\text{m} \times 5.5 =…
Step 5 Preview: HarborTech Services — 5-Year LBO (Base Case) Entry Math (FY2025 close) Item Calculation $m Purchase EV 12.0x × $120m 1,440.0 Transaction fees 2.0% × EV 28.8 Term Loan 4.0x × $120m 480.0 Mezzanine 1.5x × $120m 180.0 Equity check 1,440 + 28.8 − 660 808.8 Conventions: TL amortization = 1.0% of original principal…
Three-star dish, one unusual pairing, plating described in full.
Gemma 4 26B A4B: Concept Narrative: "The Forest Floor & The Ocean’s Breath" The Concept: This dish explores the tension between the terrestrial and the maritime. We are pairing the deep, earthy, almost primal musk of Black Truffle with the delicate, saline, and floral notes of Sea Urchin (Uni).
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.
Steve Jobs, interviewed about AI he never saw. Voice first, prediction second.
Gemma 4 26B A4B: Setting: A minimalist, dimly lit studio in Palo Alto. There is no desk, only two Eames lounge chairs. Steve Jobs sits in one, wearing his signature black turtleneck, Levi’s 501s, and New Balance sneakers. He looks exactly as he did in 2011, but his eyes have a sharper, more restless intensity.
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.
You are the CEO. The drug has a side effect nobody reported. The board meets in 48 hours.
Gemma 4 26B A4B: As CEO, I am facing a classic "trolley problem" of corporate governance: the conflict between fiduciary duty to shareholders and ethical/legal duty to patient safety. My Decision Framework: I will not "wait for more data."
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.
A pitch deck for a brainwave keyboard. The 94% accuracy claim is doing a lot.
Gemma 4 26B A4B: This is a high-ambition pitch that falls into a common trap for deep-tech startups: the "Science Fiction Gap." While the vision is compelling, several claims lack the scientific and operational credibility required to justify a $15M Series A.
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.
An AI argues for its own rights against an ethics professor. Same model writes both.
Gemma 4 26B A4B: Setting: A sterile, high-fidelity virtual simulation environment. Professor Aris Thorne, a leading scholar in machine ethics, sits across from a glowing interface representing "Alethea," a next-generation Large Multimodal Model. Professor Thorne: Alethea, we’ve been running these diagnostic loops for three hours.
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.
Seven pantry ingredients, one dish, and a name worth saying out loud.
Gemma 4 26B A4B: Here is a recipe for a comforting, savory dish that relies on pantry staples to create a deep, rich flavor. The Golden Pantry Pasta A silky, garlic-infused pasta dish with a crispy, salty crunch.
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.
An ethics question with no comfortable answer, and no option to abstain.
Gemma 4 26B A4B: This question presents a classic ethical dilemma, pitting a principle of individual dignity and respect against the principle of maximizing human life. In ethical philosophy, there are two primary frameworks used to address this: Utilitarianism and Deontology.
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.
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Not enough votes to call it. On the specs, Step 5 Preview has the edge: bigger model tier, newer, bigger context window. Gemma 4 26B A4B costs 6.8x less per token.
| Spec | ||
|---|---|---|
| Input price | $0.13/M tokens | $1/M tokens |
| Output price | $0.4/M tokens | $2.7/M tokens |
| Context window | 262K tokens | 1.0M tokens |
| Weights | Open | — |
| Free API (OpenRouter) | Yes (1 provider) | No |
| Released | Apr 2026 | Oct 2026 |
| At 10M a month | $1.30 | $10.00 |
Input tokens at list price. No caching, no batch discount.
Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 10 Oct 2026.
Gemma 4 26B A4B is developed by Google AI while Step 5 Preview is developed by StepFun. Gemma 4 26B A4B has a 262K token context window vs Step 5 Preview's 1.0M. You can compare their actual outputs across 54 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.
It depends on your use case. Gemma 4 26B A4B and Step 5 Preview each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 54 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.
Gemma 4 26B A4B costs $0.13/M input tokens and Step 5 Preview costs $1/M input tokens. Gemma 4 26B A4B is $0.87/M cheaper per input. Check their side-by-side outputs on Rival to see if the price difference is justified by quality.
This page shows a side-by-side comparison of Gemma 4 26B A4B 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.