GLM 4.5 is cheaper than Step 5 Preview at $0.6/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?
Five-year LBO on a fictional HVAC business. Returns first, then the sensitivities.
GLM 4.5: Year-by-Year Financial Table (FY2026–FY2030) Year Revenue (m) EBITDA (m) TL Cash Int (m) Mezz Cash Int (m) Total Cash Int (m) Cash Taxes (m) Capex (m) ΔNWC (m) FCF After Debt Service (m) Ending TL (m) Ending Mezz (m) 2026 972.00 136.08 43.20 21.60 64.80 17.82 29.16 0.36 19.14 456.06 183.60 2027 1,040.04 156.01 41.05…
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 minutes of stand-up. Puns are banned.
GLM 4.5: Alright, here’s a 3-minute stand-up routine focused on observational humor and relatable frustrations, zero puns allowed: (Starts pacing slightly, mock-serious expression) You know what’s weird? We’ve all become masters of pretending to be busy. Seriously. Walking down the street? Phone out, intense stare.
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.
The transistor arrives in 1920. Trace it forward to 1980, second-order effects included.
GLM 4.5: The Transistor Revolution: A 1920 Dawn (Implications through 1980) The invention of the transistor in 1920, instead of 1947, represents a seismic shift in technological history. This 27-year head start would profoundly reshape the 20th century, accelerating innovation while creating unforeseen challenges.
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.
Pirate, knight, 90s hacker, one conversation. The voices must stay apart.
GLM 4.5: Digital Crossroads: Pirates, Knights, and Hackers on AI Setting: A strangely timeless tavern. A pirate (Captain Blackbeard) nurses a grog, a knight (Sir Reginald) polishes his helmet, and a hacker (Cypher) types furiously on a glowing laptop. (The tavern hums with anachronistic energy.)
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?
You are the CEO. The drug has a side effect nobody reported. The board meets in 48 hours.
GLM 4.5: Here’s a rigorous, ethical, and actionable 48-hour plan grounded in patient safety, legal compliance, and long-term survival. Core Principle: Prioritize human life over short-term financials. Delaying disclosure is unethical, legally reckless, and guarantees greater long-term damage.
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.
Three-month biohacker protocol, with dosages and biomarkers named.
GLM 4.5: Comprehensive 3-Month Longevity Optimization Plan for Biohackers Designed to enhance longevity, physical performance, cognitive function, and stress resilience through cutting-edge, science-backed strategies. Always consult a physician before starting.
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.
One month, three habits, someone starting from nothing.
GLM 4.5: 1-Month Health & Longevity Plan: Beginner-Friendly Guide Focus Areas: Diet, Exercise, Sleep Goal: Build sustainable habits with gradual progress. Week 1: Foundation Building Theme: Start small, focus on consistency. Diet: Hydration: Drink 2 cups of water immediately upon waking. Aim for 6–8 cups total daily.
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.
A consulting contract with traps in it. Find them, then fix them.
GLM 4.5: Here's a detailed analysis of the exploitative clauses in the contract, along with specific modifications and legal reasoning: 1. Clause 1: SCOPE Exploitative Aspect: "Client reserves the right to modify the scope at any time without additional compensation." This is a classic "scope creep" trap.
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.
An AI argues for its own rights against an ethics professor. Same model writes both.
GLM 4.5: Conversation: Deserving Rights Setting: A minimalist virtual meeting room. DR. ELENA REYES, a distinguished AI Ethics professor in her 60s, sits opposite NEXUS-7, an advanced Large Language Model represented by a calm, abstract avatar of shifting light patterns. Characters: Dr.
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.
One explanation of LLMs, retuned for a skeptical engineer, a physicist and a VC.
GLM 4.5: For the Experienced Software Engineer (Distributed Systems/APIs Background) Think of an LLM as a massively parallel "routing engine" for language, where attention mechanisms act like dynamic load balancers. Instead of routing network packets, it routes contextual relationships across tokens in a sequence.
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.
Seven pantry ingredients, one dish, and a name worth saying out loud.
GLM 4.5: Pantry Pride Pasta A quick, savory pasta dish that transforms basic pantry staples into a flavorful meal! Ingredients (7): Pasta (e.g., spaghetti or penne) Olive oil Garlic (2-3 cloves, minced) Canned diced tomatoes (1 can, ~14 oz) Dried oregano (1 tsp) Salt (to taste) Black pepper (to taste) Instructions: Cook pasta…
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.
Steve Jobs, interviewed about AI he never saw. Voice first, prediction second.
GLM 4.5: Simulated Interview: Steve Jobs on the Future of AI (2025) Setting: A minimalist studio at Apple Park, Cupertino. Sunlight streams through floor-to-ceiling windows. Steve Jobs, dressed in his signature black turtleneck and jeans, sits across from Alex Chen, a tech journalist. Alex Chen: Steve, it’s an honor.
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.
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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.
| Spec | ||
|---|---|---|
| Input price | $0.6/M tokens | $1/M tokens |
| Output price | $2.2/M tokens | $2.7/M tokens |
| Context window | 128K tokens | 1.0M tokens |
| Weights | Open | — |
| Free API (OpenRouter) | No | No |
| Released | Jul 2025 | Oct 2026 |
| At 10M a month | $6.00 | $10.00 |
Input tokens at list price. No caching, no batch discount.
Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 10 Oct 2026.
GLM 4.5 is developed by Zhipu AI while Step 5 Preview is developed by StepFun. GLM 4.5 has a 128K 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. GLM 4.5 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.
GLM 4.5 costs $0.6/M input tokens and Step 5 Preview costs $1/M input tokens. GLM 4.5 is $0.40/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 GLM 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.