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AI Choice Engine

Model comparison

Claude Opus 5 vs Step 5 Preview

Anthropic against StepFun, compared on context, price, and verified benchmark results.

Catalog record checked September 26, 2026Individual provider fields may changeEvidence confidence: High — see receipts below

Anthropic

Claude Opus 5

Frontier

vs

StepFun

Step 5 Preview

Frontier

AI model capability comparison
SpecificationClaude Opus 5Step 5 Preview
ProviderAnthropicStepFun
TierFrontierFrontier
Context window1M1M
Max output128KNot verifiedUnverified
Input / 1M tokens$5Winner: $1
Output / 1M tokens$25Winner: $2.70
WeightsClosedClosed
ParametersNot disclosedUnverified600B total / 27B active MoE (StepFun)
Reasoning levelsadaptiveNot verifiedUnverified
Modalitiestext, imagetext, image
API model idclaude-opus-5step-5-preview
ReleasedJuly 24, 2026September 18, 2026
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index [max] (2026-09-26)50.8Not verifiedUnverified
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (2026-09-26)Not verifiedUnverified43.7
Humanity's Last Exam (2026-09-01)63.6Not verifiedUnverified
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (2026-09-03)86.7Not verifiedUnverified

Prices are USD per million tokens at standard rates, excluding batch and caching discounts. Bold indicates the better figure where one is objectively better. Values we could not confirm from the provider are shown as “Not verified” rather than estimated.

Benchmark receipts

Where each score comes from, and how far it can be compared across models.

  • 2026-09-26
    Artificial Analysis

    Composite index blending reasoning, knowledge, and coding evals into one 0–100 score.

    Comparable with caveatOnly same-version scores are comparable. v4.3.2 was rebaselined (the top score fell from 66 on v4.1.1 to ~58), so v4.1.1 figures must not be compared with v4.3.2 figures — check measuredAt.

  • 2026-09-03
    Meta Muse Spark 1.3 launch table (independent cross-vendor run; conflicts with Google's 89.1 — both preserved)

    Agentic terminal work: multi-step tasks executed in a sandboxed shell environment.

    Comparable with caveatNot comparable with Terminal-Bench 3.0 or 4.0 (different task sets) or v1; harness configuration (container, time limits) also shifts results.

  • 2026-09-02
    Google Gemini 3.8 Flash launch eval table (independent cross-vendor run)

    Agentic terminal work: multi-step tasks executed in a sandboxed shell environment.

    Comparable with caveatNot comparable with Terminal-Bench 3.0 or 4.0 (different task sets) or v1; harness configuration (container, time limits) also shifts results.

  • 2026-09-01
    Anthropic Fable 5.1 comparison table (vendor, with tools; 56.6 no tools)

    Frontier-knowledge ceiling: extremely hard multi-domain questions written to be near-impossible without deep expertise.

    Comparable with caveatSubset/tool configurations (text-only vs with-tools) differ between vendors and materially change scores; must match configuration to compare.

Pricing tiers

Claude Opus 5: Standard $5/$25 per MTok; cache reads 10% of base input. Knowledge cutoff May 2026.

Step 5 Preview: $1.00/$2.70 per MTok on the StepFun platform (cache-hit input $0.05); StepFun lists it under Multimodal Reasoning Models and says output tokens include reasoning. No max-output figure is published. StepFun says open weights follow on 2026-10-15. Release date per Artificial Analysis's listing (StepFun's launch page is undated).

FrontierRecord checked September 26, 2026

Claude Opus 5

Claude Opus 5 is Anthropic's July 2026 agentic-coding model, now 'Active (legacy)': Opus 5.5 is cheaper ($4/$20 vs $5/$25) and stronger.

Best for

  • Complex agentic coding
  • Enterprise work
  • Long-context analysis

Watch out

Superseded by Opus 5.5 — migrate new work, but note Opus 5.5's breaking changes (adaptive thinking always on; forced tool use errors). Output costs 5x input.

FrontierRecord checked September 26, 2026

Step 5 Preview

Step 5 Preview is StepFun's new frontier reasoning model — a 1M-context, vision-input API preview that lands near Kimi K3 and GLM 5.3 on the Artificial Analysis index at a lower price.

Best for

  • Long-context work on a budget
  • Chinese + English
  • Early testing before the open-weight drop

Watch out

Preview: weights are promised for 2026-10-15 but not yet released, and its max output is unpublished and the launch benchmarks are vendor-run.

When the cheaper one wins

Step 5 Preview is cheaper on output at $2.70 per million tokens against $25 for Claude Opus 5 — about 9.3×. Use the cheaper tier for classification, extraction, summarisation, and any task where the expensive model’s extra score does not change the accepted output. The expensive one only pays if your hardest task actually fails on the cheap tier. These are standard-tier API rates, excluding batch and cache discounts.

Run the model picker

Evidence confidence: High

How strong and complete the evidence behind this comparison is — not a prediction of which model is better.

  • Pricing verified on both sides — Input and output rates are verified for both models.
  • 2/5 core specs verified on both sides — Not published for at least one side: max output, parameter count, reasoning levels.
  • 1 shared named benchmark with differing scores — Measured on: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index.
  • Verified within the last 90 days — Newest catalog check was 2 days ago.
  • Both models carry source citations — Each side has at least two catalog sources on record.

Source receipts

Each catalog figure was checked against the provider or an independent second source on the date shown.

Related comparisons

Diving deeper on one model? Claude Opus 5 · Step 5 Preview

Common questions

Claude Opus 5 vs Step 5 Preview

Answered from the verified figures on this page rather than general guidance.

Is Claude Opus 5 or Step 5 Preview cheaper for input?
Step 5 Preview is cheaper at $1 per million input tokens, against $5 for Claude Opus 5 — roughly 5.0× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; Claude Opus 5 has tiered pricing: Standard $5/$25 per MTok; cache reads 10% of base input. Knowledge cutoff May 2026. Step 5 Preview has tiered pricing: $1.00/$2.70 per MTok on the StepFun platform (cache-hit input $0.05); StepFun lists it under Multimodal Reasoning Models and says output tokens include reasoning. No max-output figure is published. StepFun says open weights follow on 2026-10-15. Release date per Artificial Analysis's listing (StepFun's launch page is undated).
Is Claude Opus 5 or Step 5 Preview cheaper for output?
Step 5 Preview is cheaper at $2.70 per million output tokens, against $25 for Claude Opus 5 — roughly 9.3× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; Claude Opus 5 has tiered pricing: Standard $5/$25 per MTok; cache reads 10% of base input. Knowledge cutoff May 2026. Step 5 Preview has tiered pricing: $1.00/$2.70 per MTok on the StepFun platform (cache-hit input $0.05); StepFun lists it under Multimodal Reasoning Models and says output tokens include reasoning. No max-output figure is published. StepFun says open weights follow on 2026-10-15. Release date per Artificial Analysis's listing (StepFun's launch page is undated).
Which has the larger context window, Claude Opus 5 or Step 5 Preview?
Both accept about 1M tokens of context, so document length will not decide between them.
Should I use Claude Opus 5 or Step 5 Preview?
Both sit in the frontier tier, so the choice usually comes down to price and context rather than capability. Claude Opus 5 suits complex agentic coding; Step 5 Preview suits long-context work on a budget.

Next step

Choosing between them

The verified figures that separate this pair, computed from the catalog rather than restated boilerplate.

  • Input price: Step 5 Preview costs $1 per 1M tokens versus $5 for Claude Opus 5 — a 5x difference at the headline tier.
  • Measured capability: Claude Opus 5 leads Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index 50.8 to 43.7 (measured 2026-09-26).
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