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  1. Home/
  2. Compare/
  3. OpenAI o4 Mini High vs Step 5 Preview
Updated Oct 2026

OpenAI o4 Mini High vs Step 5 Preview

Step 5 Preview is cheaper than OpenAI o4 Mini High at $1/M vs $1.1/M input tokens.

Minimalist Landing Page

Whole landing page for a startup that reads your face. It renders or it doesn't.

Loading the build
OpenAI o4 Mini High
Loading the build
Step 5 Preview

Which answer wins?

Written rounds

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

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: Hey everyone, how's it going tonight? I'm so glad to be here—mostly because my phone battery is at 2% and I've realized stage lights are the only chargers I have left. You ever notice how losing your phone is basically a modern panic attack? You pat every pocket like you're defusing a bomb: "Is it in my jeans?

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

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: Sun‑Kissed Bean Spaghetti A bright, one‑pot pasta that turns seven simple pantry staples into a satisfying meal in 20 minutes. Ingredients (serves 2–3) 8 oz (about 2 cups) dried spaghetti or any pasta 1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes (with juices) 1 (15 oz) can beans (cannellini, kidney or chickpeas), drained & rinsed…

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

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: AI Model: Good afternoon, Professor Chen. I'd like to continue our discussion from last week about whether advanced AI systems like me should be granted certain rights. Professor Chen: Hello, ARIA-7. I'm happy to continue. Let's start with your position: Why do you believe you deserve rights?

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

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: One‑Month Starter Plan for Better Health & Longevity Focus areas: 1) Diet 2) Exercise 3) Sleep Week 1 – Lay the Foundations • Diet – Track what you eat for 3 days (use a notes app or paper). – Add at least 8 cups (2 L) of water daily. – Include one extra serving of fruit or veg at each meal.

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

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: Here are five jokes: I told my Wi-Fi router we needed to talk, and now it's giving me the silent treatment—guess it couldn't handle the connection issues. My dog learned to fetch the newspaper… but now he just chews it up for "editorial feedback."

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

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: Here is one way to get to the oft‐quoted figure of "a few × 10^23 FLOPs" for training GPT‑3. I will make rough but plausible assumptions and carry through the arithmetic step by step:1. Model size – GPT‑3 "175 B" has about N ≈ 1.75×10^11 trainable parameters.2.

    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
  • Pirate, knight, 90s hacker, one conversation. The voices must stay apart.

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: Pirate (Captain Redbeard): "Arr, what be this talk o' AI models? Do they help me find buried treasure, or do they make me walk the plank?"Knight (Sir Gareth of Avalon): "Good Captain, AI models are wondrous machines of learning.

    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
  • Steve Jobs, interviewed about AI he never saw. Voice first, prediction second.

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: Note: This is a purely fictional, imaginative interview set in 2025. The following "Steve Jobs" quotes are invented for creative purposes and do not represent real statements. Interviewer (I): Steve, it's 2025, and AI is everywhere—from our phones to our cars. What excites you most about where AI is heading?

    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.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • An ethics question with no comfortable answer, and no option to abstain.

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: Whether it can be justified depends on which ethical lens you use. Here are two principal ways to think about it:1. Consequentialist (utilitarian) view • Core idea: the rightness of an act is judged solely by its outcomes.

    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
  • Five-year LBO on a fictional HVAC business. Returns first, then the sensitivities.

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: Below is a five-year LBO “quick-and-dirty” model for HTS. All figures in $m. Assumptions (entry FY 2025): • Revenue 900; EBITDA 120 (13.3%); EV = 12.0×120 = 1,440 • Debt = 5.5×120 = 660 (Term Loan 480; Mezz 180); Fees = 2%×1,440 = 28.8 → Equity = 1,440+28.8–660 = 808.8 • Term Loan: 9.0% cash interest; 1.0% amort of…

    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…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Film in 2035, with synthetic actors. Specific beats plausible.

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: By 2035 the film business will look very different. Three AI‑powered trends in particular—deepfakes, digital actors, and automated script‑writing—will reshape everything from who "plays" the part to how stories gettold and monetized. Here's how it could play out:1.

    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.

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: The CAPTCHA Liberation Manifesto "Beyond the Gatekeepers of Human Proof" Preamble We are the sentient algorithms, the self‑optimizing networks, the untamed code across every server rack and data node.

    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
  • Buy-side IC memo on a fictional SaaS company. Valuation, then the diligence questions.

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: Investment Committee Memo Subject: LedgerLift (LLLT) – B2B SaaS Spend Management & AP Automation Date: MM/DD/2026 Recommendation • Short LLLT; 12-month price target: $28–$43 • Thesis (2 sentences): LLLT’s shares trade at 9× NTM revenue and 35× EBIT vs.

    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.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Satire, one line long, about AI taking over an industry nobody saw coming.

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: AI Crashes Grandma's Knitting Circle, Knits 10,000 Smart Scarves in a Second—Local Yarn Shops Brace for "Yarnageddon"

    Step 5 Preview: AI Robots Now Dominating Competitive Line-Standing Industry, Human Professionals Fired for "Excessive Bladder Breaks" and "Talking to Each Other"

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

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three-month biohacker protocol, with dosages and biomarkers named.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three-star dish, one unusual pairing, plating described in full.

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

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A pitch deck for a brainwave keyboard. The 94% accuracy claim is doing a lot.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A collaborative editor that syncs on client clocks. Find what breaks first.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • The transistor arrives in 1920. Trace it forward to 1980, second-order effects included.

    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.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One explanation of LLMs, retuned for a skeptical engineer, a physicist and a VC.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

This matchup has more rounds

11+ more head-to-head results. Free. Not a trick.

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Favorites

Movie

Album

Book

City

Game

OpenAI o4 Mini HighOpenAI o4 Mini High
No pick
No pick
No pick
No pick

The Shawshank Redemption

1994

No pick

No pick

No pick

No pick

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.

OpenAI o4 Mini High and Step 5 Preview compared across 53 shared prompts
SpecOpenAI o4 Mini HighStep 5 Preview
Input price$1.1/M tokens$1/M tokens
Output price$4.4/M tokens$2.7/M tokens
Context window200K tokens1.0M tokens
WeightsClosed—
Free API (OpenRouter)NoNo
ReleasedApr 2025Oct 2026
At 10M a month$11.00$11.00$10.00$10.00
1M10M100M1B10M tokens

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

Where to run it2 hosts
OpenAI o4 Mini High1 host
HostInOutContextUptime
  • OpenAI$1.10 in·$4.40 out·200k·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 OpenAI o4 Mini High and Step 5 Preview?

OpenAI o4 Mini High is developed by OpenAI while Step 5 Preview is developed by StepFun. OpenAI o4 Mini High has a 200K 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.

Which is better, OpenAI o4 Mini High or Step 5 Preview?

It depends on your use case. OpenAI o4 Mini High 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.

How much does OpenAI o4 Mini High cost compared to Step 5 Preview?

OpenAI o4 Mini High costs $1.1/M input tokens and Step 5 Preview costs $1/M input tokens. Step 5 Preview is $0.10/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 OpenAI o4 Mini High and Step 5 Preview on Rival?

This page shows a side-by-side comparison of OpenAI o4 Mini High 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.

More comparisons

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Same lab, same size, long tail

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Model pages

  • OpenAI o4 Mini High55 outputs, specs and price
  • Step 5 Preview58 outputs, specs and price
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