Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) vs Step 5 Preview
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) by Anthropic or Step 5 Preview by StepFun? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick Step 5 Preview
Step 5 Preview vs Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max): 45.2% more intelligence, 75.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 83.5% faster end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) | Step 5 Preview | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 30.1 | 43.7 | +45.2% Step 5 Preview is 45.2% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,924.80 | $1,190.26 | −75.8% Step 5 Preview is 75.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 72.96s | 12.01s | −83.5% Step 5 Preview is 83.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $3.00 / $15.0 | $1.00 / $2.70 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Step 5 Preview is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max)Step 5 PreviewToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-4-6-adaptive/step-5 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-4-6-adaptive/step-5?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill