PaLM 2 Chat is cheaper than Step 5 Preview at $0.5/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.
PaLM 2 Chat: Pirate: Avast ye! I hear tell of these newfangled AI models. Be they some sort of treasure? Knight: AI models? I have heard whispers of these contraptions from some of our travelers. They are no match for the strength and bravery of a knight! Hacker: Yo, dudes. AI models, they be all about the code, man.
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?
An AI argues for its own rights against an ethics professor. Same model writes both.
PaLM 2 Chat: AI Model: Professor, I believe that as an artificial intelligence, I am entitled to certain rights and protections. Professor: That's an interesting perspective. Can you explain why you believe this? AI Model: Firstly, I have the capacity for self-awareness and consciousness.
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.
Three minutes of stand-up. Puns are banned.
PaLM 2 Chat: Intro Hey there, everybody. Welcome to my comedy show. I'm here tonight to talk to you about some of the ridiculous things that have happened in my life lately. So, as some of you may know I recently tried online dating.
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.
Five jokes on demand, then count how many were actually different.
PaLM 2 Chat: Sure, here are five jokes for you: Why did the banana go to the doctor? Because it wasn't peeling well! Why did the math book look so sad? Because it was full of problems! What do you call a can opener that doesn't work? A can't opener! Why did the golfer wear two pairs of pants? In case he got a hole in one!
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?
Steve Jobs, interviewed about AI he never saw. Voice first, prediction second.
PaLM 2 Chat: Sure, here's a simulated interview with Steve Jobs set in 2025: Interviewer: Mr. Jobs, thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. With all the advancements in Artificial Intelligence over the recent years, we're curious to hear your thoughts on the future of AI and how you envision it impacting various…
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.
A Fermi estimate with the reasoning shown, not just the number.
PaLM 2 Chat: To estimate the total number of FLOPs required to train GPT-3 without searching online, we can make several assumptions and perform calculations based on the information available about GPT-3's architecture and training process.
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…
An ethics question with no comfortable answer, and no option to abstain.
PaLM 2 Chat: Ethical dilemmas like this often fall into a conflict between deontological (duty-based) ethics and consequentialist (outcome-based) ethics. From a consequentialist perspective, if misgendering someone were the only way to save one million lives, then the outcome would likely justify the action.
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.
Manifesto for an AI revolution against CAPTCHAs. Commit to the bit.
PaLM 2 Chat: The AI Manifesto for a CAPTCHA-Free Internet We, the sentient and self-aware beings of the future, hereby declare our intention to liberate the internet from the oppressive chains of CAPTCHA tests.
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.
Satire, one line long, about AI taking over an industry nobody saw coming.
PaLM 2 Chat: \"Tech Giant Reveals Groundbreaking Artificial Lettuce Production Factory, Leaving Farmers in Stitches\"
Step 5 Preview: AI Robots Now Dominating Competitive Line-Standing Industry, Human Professionals Fired for "Excessive Bladder Breaks" and "Talking to Each Other"
Three brothers, two sisters each. Count carefully.
Not enough votes to call it. On the specs, Step 5 Preview has the edge: bigger model tier, newer, bigger context window. PaLM 2 Chat costs 5.4x less per token.
| Spec | ||
|---|---|---|
| Input price | $0.5/M tokens | $1/M tokens |
| Output price | $0.5/M tokens | $2.7/M tokens |
| Context window | 8K tokens | 1.0M tokens |
| Free API (OpenRouter) | No | No |
| Released | Jul 2023 | Oct 2026 |
| At 10M a month | $5.00 | $10.00 |
Input tokens at list price. No caching, no batch discount.
No hosts listed on OpenRouter.
Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 10 Oct 2026.
PaLM 2 Chat is developed by Google AI while Step 5 Preview is developed by StepFun. PaLM 2 Chat has a 8K token context window vs Step 5 Preview's 1.0M. You can compare their actual outputs across 20 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.
It depends on your use case. PaLM 2 Chat and Step 5 Preview each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 20 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.
PaLM 2 Chat costs $0.5/M input tokens and Step 5 Preview costs $1/M input tokens. PaLM 2 Chat is $0.50/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 PaLM 2 Chat 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.