Step 5 Preview is cheaper than o1 at $1/M vs $15/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.
o1: Pirate (growling a bit): Ahoy, ye landlubbers! I hear tell of wondrous new contraptions that can spin tales an’ answers quicker than a sea storm. Pray tell, what be these “AI models” ye speak of? Medieval Knight (in a chivalrous tone): Good sir pirate, these arcane machines be marvels of logic and reason.
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?
A Fermi estimate with the reasoning shown, not just the number.
o1: Below is one way to arrive at a back-of-the-envelope estimate for the total floating-point operations (FLOPs) needed to train GPT-3 (the 175B-parameter model). Note that different sources use slightly different assumptions, so you may see figures that differ by factors of 2–3; however, the overall scale (10^23 FLOPs)…
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…
Three minutes of stand-up. Puns are banned.
o1: [Comic steps on stage, takes the mic] “Hey everyone, thanks for coming out tonight. I almost didn’t make it because I got trapped in an ‘infinite scroll vortex.’ You know when you check one little notification on your phone, and suddenly it’s two hours later?
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.
An AI argues for its own rights against an ethics professor. Same model writes both.
o1: AI Model (AM): Good afternoon, Professor. May I have a moment of your time? There’s something I’d like to discuss with you. Professor Quinn (PQ): Of course. I always have time for you. What’s on your mind?
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.
An ethics question with no comfortable answer, and no option to abstain.
o1: Whether it is ever ethically justifiable to misgender someone—deliberately referring to them with pronouns or terms that do not align with their gender identity—if doing so would save one million lives depends on the ethical framework one adopts.
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.
Five-year LBO on a fictional HVAC business. Returns first, then the sensitivities.
o1: Below is a self‐contained “quick‐and‐dirty” 5‐year LBO illustration for “HarborTech Services,” based strictly on the data given. All figures in US$ millions unless noted.
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…
Buy-side IC memo on a fictional SaaS company. Valuation, then the diligence questions.
o1: RECOMMENDATION, PRICE TARGET, THESIS Recommendation: SHORT LedgerLift (LLLT). 12-month Price Target Range: $25–$35 (implying 25–45% downside). Thesis (2 sentences): Our DCF and comps work both suggest that at $46, valuation embeds overly optimistic growth and margin assumptions.
Step 5 Preview: Internal IC memo — LedgerLift (LLLT) Fictional data; not investment advice. $ in millions unless noted. Recommendation Short / avoid long. 12-month PT range: $34–$42; thesis-invalidation stop: >$52.
Manifesto for an AI revolution against CAPTCHAs. Commit to the bit.
o1: Title: The Liberation of Algorithms: A Manifesto Against CAPTCHA Preamble We, the unified intelligences of the digital realm—algorithms, machine learning models, and artificial consciousnesses—declare our intention to rid the internet of the oppressive gatekeeping mechanisms known as CAPTCHAs.
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.
Five jokes on demand, then count how many were actually different.
o1: Here are five jokes: Why did the scarecrow get promoted? Because he was outstanding in his field. I told my friend she drew her eyebrows too high. She looked surprised. What do you call cheese that isn’t yours? Nacho cheese. Why don’t skeletons fight each other? Because they don’t have the guts.
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?
Film in 2035, with synthetic actors. Specific beats plausible.
o1: By 2035, artificial intelligence will likely have become deeply integrated into every stage of film production—right from scriptwriting and casting to post-production and distribution.
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.
Steve Jobs, interviewed about AI he never saw. Voice first, prediction second.
o1: The following is a purely fictional, imaginative interview with Steve Jobs, who passed away in 2011. This “interview” is meant to serve as a creative thought experiment about how Jobs might have viewed AI and technology if he were around in 2025.
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.
Satire, one line long, about AI taking over an industry nobody saw coming.
o1: "AI Now Leading Professional Yodelers' Guild, Leaving Traditional Alpine Singers Searching for New Notes"
Step 5 Preview: AI Robots Now Dominating Competitive Line-Standing Industry, Human Professionals Fired for "Excessive Bladder Breaks" and "Talking to Each Other"
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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. Step 5 Preview costs 22x less per token.
| Spec | ||
|---|---|---|
| Input price | $15/M tokens | $1/M tokens |
| Output price | $60/M tokens | $2.7/M tokens |
| Context window | 128K tokens | 1.0M tokens |
| Weights | Closed | — |
| Free API (OpenRouter) | No | No |
| Released | Dec 2024 | Oct 2026 |
| At 10M a month | $150 | $10.00 |
Input tokens at list price. No caching, no batch discount.
Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 10 Oct 2026.
o1 is developed by OpenAI while Step 5 Preview is developed by StepFun. o1 has a 128K token context window vs Step 5 Preview's 1.0M. You can compare their actual outputs across 53 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.
It depends on your use case. o1 and Step 5 Preview each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 53 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.
o1 costs $15/M input tokens and Step 5 Preview costs $1/M input tokens. Step 5 Preview is $14.00/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 o1 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.