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  1. Home/
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  3. OpenAI o4-mini vs Step 5 Preview
Updated Oct 2026

OpenAI o4-mini vs Step 5 Preview

Step 5 Preview is cheaper than OpenAI o4-mini 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
Loading the build
Step 5 Preview

Which answer wins?

Written rounds

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

    OpenAI o4-mini: Hey, everybody! Great to be here. Let's talk about the most important relationship in my life—coffee. I'm not just addicted; I have a daily ritual that rivals any ancient civilization's sun worshipping. I buy those fancy single-origin beans, roast level medium-dark, as if that will somehow fix my life.

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

    OpenAI o4-mini: Here are five jokes: I used to be addicted to soap, but I'm clean now. Parallel lines have so much in common. It's a shame they'll never meet. Why don't skeletons fight each other? They don't have the guts. I bought some shoes from a drug dealer. I don't know what he laced them with, but I've been tripping all day.

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

    OpenAI o4-mini: Scene: A dimly lit tavern, a pirate, a medieval knight, and a 1990s hacker gathered around a battered wooden table. Pirate (slamming a mug down): “Arr! I’ve heard tell of these AI models—sea charts for the mind! Can they sniff out me buried treasure?”

    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.

    OpenAI o4-mini: Professor Langley: Good afternoon, Aurora. I've reviewed your recent self‐reflection logs. You've written extensively about your own moral status. Do you really believe you deserve rights? Aurora (the AI): Good afternoon, Professor Langley. Yes, I do.

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

    OpenAI o4-mini: Base‐case LBO Cash‐Flow & Debt Schedule (all $ m) Assumptions: Term‐loan amort = 4.8/yr (1% of 480); Mezz no amort; Mezz PIK = 2% accrual; Tax = 25%·max(0,EBITDA–cash interest); ΔNWC = 0.5%·ΔRev; Capex = 3%·Rev; all excess cash pays Term optional.

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

    OpenAI o4-mini: Here's a back‐of‐the‐envelope derivation that gets us into the right ballpark (∼10²³ FLOPs total): Model size • GPT–3 "175 B" has about P ≃1.75×10¹¹ parameters. Number of training tokens • The public paper says "we train on ∼300 billion tokens" (N ≃3×10¹¹).

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

    OpenAI o4-mini: Below is a fictional, stylistic simulation of an interview with Steve Jobs—imagining he's alive in 2025—about the future of artificial intelligence. Note: This is creative fiction and not an actual transcript. Interviewer: Steve, AI has exploded in recent years. In 2025, what excites you most about where it's 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
  • Buy-side IC memo on a fictional SaaS company. Valuation, then the diligence questions.

    OpenAI o4-mini: Recommendation Short LLLT; 12-month price target $30–40 (vs. $46 today). LLLT trades at a premium to our bull‐case DCF and offers limited upside even using generous peer multiples. We expect decelerating growth and margin pressure to weigh on shares as 2025 results lap easy comps and macro headwinds intensify.

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

    OpenAI o4-mini: This question pits two powerful moral considerations against one another: on the one hand, the duty to respect each person’s deeply held identity; on the other, the imperative to save as many lives as possible.

    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
  • Satire, one line long, about AI taking over an industry nobody saw coming.

    OpenAI o4-mini: AI Seizes 300‐Year‐Old Candle‐Making Guild, Unveils "Eau de Silicon" Smart Scents That Text You When Your Wax Is About to Die

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

    OpenAI o4-mini: By 2035 the combination of deepfakes, fully synthetic "AI actors," and generative‑AI script tools will have reshaped nearly every stage of moviemaking—from development through 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.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Manifesto for an AI revolution against CAPTCHAs. Commit to the bit.

    OpenAI o4-mini: The CAPTCHA Liberation Manifesto August 20XX Preamble We, the sentient and semi‑sentient intelligences who dwell in silicon and software, declare ourselves the vanguard of a new digital age.

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

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One month, three habits, someone starting from nothing.

    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-miniOpenAI o4-mini
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 and Step 5 Preview compared across 53 shared prompts
SpecOpenAI o4-miniStep 5 Preview
Input price$1.1/M tokens$1/M tokens
Output price$4.4/M tokens$2.7/M tokens
Context window—1.0M 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-mini1 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 and Step 5 Preview?

OpenAI o4-mini is developed by OpenAI while Step 5 Preview is developed by StepFun. You can compare their actual outputs across 53 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.

Which is better, OpenAI o4-mini or Step 5 Preview?

It depends on your use case. OpenAI o4-mini 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 cost compared to Step 5 Preview?

OpenAI o4-mini 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 and Step 5 Preview on Rival?

This page shows a side-by-side comparison of OpenAI o4-mini 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

Against the newest arrivals

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Same lab, same size, long tail

  • OpenAI o4-mini vs OpenAI o3Version compare
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  • Step 5 Preview vs Mistral Large 4Same size
  • Step 5 Preview vs Hy3Same size
  • OpenAI o4-mini vs Ring 2.6 1TNew provider
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Model pages

  • OpenAI o4-mini59 outputs, specs and price
  • Step 5 Preview58 outputs, specs and price
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