BenchLeader

GPT-5.4 vs Step 5 Preview

Full profiles: GPT-5.4 (OpenAI) and Step 5 Preview (StepFun): every benchmark, price and rank.

Updated · Data from 12 sources

As of 14 Nov 2026, GPT-5.4 is ahead of Step 5 Preview on quality (63.1 vs 54.3 on the BenchLeader Index), but Step 5 Preview is 3.9× cheaper at $1.43 vs $5.63 per 1M tokens blended. Choose GPT-5.4 for coding (65 vs 50), reasoning (66 vs 52), and agents & tools (63 vs 50); choose Step 5 Preview for fast first answers (24.3 s vs 143.8 s) and long context (69 vs 66), where it also streams ~2× faster.

Key facts (as of 14 Nov 2026)

  • GPT-5.4 scores 63.1 on the BenchLeader Index and Step 5 Preview scores 54.3 (BenchLeader, 14 Nov 2026).
  • GPT-5.4 costs $5.63 per 1M tokens blended (list price, 14 Nov 2026).
  • Step 5 Preview costs $1.43 per 1M tokens blended (list price, 14 Nov 2026).
  • Step 5 Preview streams ~2× faster than GPT-5.4 (Artificial Analysis, 7-day median, 14 Nov 2026).
  • Of the 11 benchmarks both models have, Step 5 Preview leads 8 (BenchLeader, 14 Nov 2026).

Which to pick for…

The pick's numbers come first. Category scores on the BenchLeader scale (50 is the average model, 15 points one standard deviation). High confidence means a lead of half a standard deviation or more; under one point is called either.

Use casePickWhyConfidence
CodingGPT-5.465 vs 50 category score; SciCode 56.6% vs 58.9%High
Agents & tool useGPT-5.463 vs 50 category score; APEX-Agents (AA) 33.3% vs 38.0%High
MathsGPT-5.465 vs 60 category score; ProofBench 56.0% vs 42.0%Medium
ReasoningGPT-5.466 vs 52 category score; CritPt 23.4% vs 20.9%High
KnowledgeGPT-5.459 vs 54 category scoreMedium
Long documentsStep 5 Preview69 vs 66 category score; AA-LCR v1.1 88.3% vs 82.0%Medium
Images and other mediaGPT-5.461 vs 59 category score; MMMU-Pro 78.4% vs 76.4%Medium
Chat quality (human preference)–Only Step 5 Preview has an Arena rating (63 category score)Not comparable
Lowest costStep 5 Preview$1.43 vs $5.63 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.071 vs $0.210–
Fastest first answerStep 5 Preview24.3 s (Step 5 Preview) vs 143.8 s (GPT-5.4 (xhigh)) to the first answer token–
High volume on a budgetNeither flagshipA smaller model is usually the better fit: Cheapest good LLMs, Fastest LLMs–

Key differences

  • GPT-5.4 (xhigh) leads on quality: 63.1 vs 54.3.
  • GPT-5.4 (xhigh) is stronger in agents & tools, coding, knowledge, maths, multimodal, reasoning.
  • Step 5 Preview is stronger in long context.
  • Step 5 Preview is 3.9× cheaper ($1.43 vs $5.63 per 1M blended).
  • Step 5 Preview streams 2.0× faster (133 vs 66 tokens per second).

At a glance

SpecGPT-5.4Step 5 Preview
DeveloperOpenAIStepFun
Released5 Mar 202618 Sep 2026
Context window (tokens)1,050,0001,000,000
Compared atGPT-5.4 (xhigh)Step 5 Preview
Open weightsNoYes
Price in / out / cached input per 1M$2.50 / $15.00 / $0.250$1.00 / $2.70 / $0.105

Category by category

Category scores on the BenchLeader scale: 50 is the average evaluated model, 15 points is one standard deviation. A gap under one point is called level.

CategoryGPT-5.4 (xhigh)Step 5 PreviewLeader
Reasoning65.651.7GPT-5.4
Coding64.749.9GPT-5.4
Agents & tools63.049.7GPT-5.4
Maths65.060.1GPT-5.4
Knowledge58.653.7GPT-5.4
Instruction following72.4–not comparable
Human preference–63.1not comparable
Multimodal60.859.3GPT-5.4
Long context65.769.0Step 5 Preview
Composite–38.3not comparable

On one chart

Each domain on the index's own scale, where 50 is an average model. Click a domain to see the benchmarks behind it. Pick up to 5 models from the list.

2550 avg75ReasoningCodingAgents & toolsMathsKnowledgeLong contextMultimodalGPT-5.4, Reasoning: 65.6GPT-5.4, Coding: 64.7GPT-5.4, Agents & tools: 63.0GPT-5.4, Maths: 65.0GPT-5.4, Knowledge: 58.6GPT-5.4, Long context: 65.7GPT-5.4, Multimodal: 60.8Step 5 Preview, Reasoning: 51.7Step 5 Preview, Coding: 49.9Step 5 Preview, Agents & tools: 49.7Step 5 Preview, Maths: 60.1Step 5 Preview, Knowledge: 53.7Step 5 Preview, Long context: 69.0Step 5 Preview, Multimodal: 59.3

Not drawn, measured for fewer than two of these models: Instruction following, Human preference.

Model, click to add or removeIndex

Where sources disagree

Across the 11 benchmarks both have, GPT-5.4 leads 3, Step 5 Preview leads 8. Every overall index that rates both puts GPT-5.4 ahead.

Overall indexGPT-5.4 (xhigh)Step 5 PreviewLeader
BenchLeader Index63.154.3GPT-5.4
Arena Text1475†1449GPT-5.4

Each publisher runs its own tasks, harnesses and effort settings, so their overall verdicts can differ; BenchLeader reconciles them on one scale. † measured at another effort setting of the same model (the publisher did not test the one compared here).

Price, speed and latency

List prices blended at three input tokens per output token. Per-task prices use the token counts on the methodology page. Cost, tokens and time per benchmark task are measured: Artificial Analysis’ averages over its whole Intelligence Index run.

MeasureGPT-5.4 (xhigh)Step 5 Preview
Blended price per 1M tokens$5.63$1.43
Input / output per 1M$2.50 / $15.00$1.00 / $2.70
Cached input per 1M$0.250$0.105
Price per task: chat reply$0.0055$0.0012
Price per task: summarize a 30-page report$0.039$0.014
Price per task: code edit$0.037$0.010
Price per task: agentic coding session$0.210$0.071
Price per task: structured extraction$0.0080$0.0025
Agentic coding session, input mostly cached$0.109$0.030
Cost per benchmark task (AA Index)–$2.35
Output tokens per task (AA Index)–113k
Of which reasoning–80k
Time per task (AA Index)–14 min
Output speed66 tok/s133 tok/s
Time to first answer143.8 s24.3 s
Time to a complete answer203.4 s57.4 s

Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. GPT-5.4 (xhigh) scores 63.1 and takes 144 s to its first answer token; GPT-5.4 (low) scores 58.8 in 3 s, GPT-5.4 (high) scores 58.6 in 2 s. Step 5 Preview scores 54.3 and takes 24 s to its first answer token. Higher effort means more thinking before the answer: better scores, longer waits and more tokens billed. How reasoning effort changes scores and cost.

Every benchmark

169 benchmarks, grouped by category; each name links to the board and its leaders. † measured at another effort setting of the same model, shown for reference and not counted as a win.

MetricPublisherGPT-5.4 (xhigh)Step 5 Preview
BenchLeader IndexBenchLeader63.154.3
Agents & tools scoreBenchLeader63.049.7
Coding scoreBenchLeader64.749.9
Instruction following scoreBenchLeader72.4–
Knowledge scoreBenchLeader58.653.7
Long context scoreBenchLeader65.769.0
Maths scoreBenchLeader65.060.1
Multimodal scoreBenchLeader60.859.3
Reasoning scoreBenchLeader65.651.7
Composite scoreBenchLeader–38.3
Human preference scoreBenchLeader–63.1
Blended price $/MBenchLeader$5.63$1.43
Output speedBenchLeader66 tok/s133 tok/s
Time to first answerBenchLeader143.8 s24.3 s
Context windowBenchLeader1,050,000 tokens1,000,000 tokens
Reasoning
GPQA DiamondEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub93.3%–
Humanity's Last ExamScale AI / CAIS36.2%–
Arena Hard PromptsArena (LMArena)1487†1477
LiveBench 2.0 ReasoningLiveBench–83.8%
LiveBench 1.0 ReasoningLiveBench88.1%–
GPQA Diamond (AA)Artificial Analysis92.0%–
Humanity's Last Exam (AA)Artificial Analysis43.7%46.5%
HLE-Diamond (AA)Artificial Analysis–24.3%
GPQA Diamond (Vals)Vals AI91.7%–
Kagi LLM BenchmarkKagi LLM Benchmark63.8%†–
ARC-AGI-1ARC Prize93.7%–
ARC-AGI-2ARC Prize74.0%–
ARC-AGI-3ARC Prize0.2%†–
CritPtArtificial Analysis23.4%20.9%
CritPt v2 hard subset (AA)Artificial Analysis–32.5%
MysteryMechanismVals AI–18.5%
Chess PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub48.0%–
Mystery Game PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub37.0%–
CL-benchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub27.9%–
CL-bench LifeEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub21.7%–
LMCAEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub52.0%–
DTBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub94.4%–
ForecastBenchForecastBench63.0%†–
Coding
SWE-bench Verified (Epoch)Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub76.9%†–
SciCodeSciCode56.6%58.9%
Show all 169 benchmarks
MetricPublisherGPT-5.4 (xhigh)Step 5 Preview
Coding
WeirdMLWeirdML77.7%–
GSO-BenchGSO-Bench31.4%–
Arena CodingArena (LMArena)1511†1505
Arena WebDevArena (LMArena)1400†1573†
LiveBench 2.0 CodingLiveBench–67.6%
LiveBench 1.0 CodingLiveBench77.5%–
SciCode (AA)Artificial Analysis–58.9%
LiveCodeBenchVals AI84.1%–
IOIVals AI–38.1%
SWE-bench (Vals)Vals AI78.2%–
SWE-Bench ProScale AI SEAL59.1%–
Code MigrationVals AI35.0%39.0%
Code Migration v1.1Vals AI–47.0%
ProgramBenchVals AI0.0%–
SWE-bench MultimodalVals AI–40.8%
Vibe Code Bench v1.1Vals AI67.4%70.4%
SWE-Bench Pro (private)Scale AI SEAL59.1%–
SWE Atlas: Codebase QnAScale AI SEAL40.8%–
SWE Atlas: RefactoringScale AI SEAL44.3%–
SWE Atlas: Test WritingScale AI SEAL44.4%–
MirrorCodeEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub23.3%–
DeepSWE v1.1Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub51.8%–
ALE-BenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub1607†–
AlgoTuneAlgoTune1.9†–
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA)Artificial Analysis–33.3%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis78.3%–
GameBench 2 OverallDuelLab GameBench 254.0†–
GameBench 2 by reasoning settingDuelLab GameBench 262.2–
Design Arena WebsiteDesign Arena1190†–
FrontierCode 1.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis–38.4%
FrontierCode 2.0 (AA)Artificial Analysis–12.0%
Agents & tools
Terminal-BenchTerminal-Bench81.8%†–
APEX-AgentsMercor52.4%†–
Arena AgentArena (LMArena)–-3.7
LiveBench Long AgenticLiveBench–19.4%
LiveBench BrowserLiveBench–24.8%
LiveBench Agentic CodingLiveBench53.8%–
Terminal-Bench HardArtificial Analysis57.6%–
τ²-Bench Telecom (AA)Artificial Analysis87.1%–
MCP AtlasScale AI SEAL70.6%–
HiL-BenchScale AI SEAL9.7%†–
τ³-bench Bankingτ²-bench39.4%–
GDPval-AA v2.1, normalised scoreArtificial Analysis–54.3%
GDPval-AA v2.1Artificial Analysis–1591
τ³-Banking (AA)Artificial Analysis39.6%–
ITBench SRE (AA)Artificial Analysis–55.6%
Analyst Agent (AA)Artificial Analysis–35.0%
APEX-Agents (AA)Artificial Analysis33.3%38.0%
Finance Agent v2Vals AI–50.7%
Finance Agent v2.1Vals AI–58.9%
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1.1Vals AI–12.9%
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1Vals AI0.0%9.2%
Legal Research BenchVals AI–40.4%
SkillsBenchVals AI51.7%–
SREBenchVals AI–0.4%
Tax Agent BenchVals AI–27.3%
Terminal-Bench 2.0 (Vals)Vals AI58.4%†–
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals)Vals AI–31.8%
Terminal-Bench ScienceVals AI–2.9%
Arena SearchArena (LMArena)1196†–
DeepResearch BenchDeepResearch Bench35.1%†–
PostTrainBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub17.8%†–
METR Time HorizonsMETR74.3%–
GBAEvalEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub45.1%†–
Vending-Bench 2Andon Labs6144.2†–
AutomationBenchArtificial Analysis–51.0%
GDP.pdf (AA)Artificial Analysis–14.8%
EnterpriseOps-GymArtificial Analysis–47.2%
AA-Briefcase v1.1Artificial Analysis–1424
Design Arena AgenticDesign Arena1036†–
Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis–2.4%
CWE-Bench (AA)Artificial Analysis–52.5%
DeepSec-Bench (AA)Artificial Analysis–15.8%
CyberGym end-to-end (AA)Artificial Analysis–74.8%
DeepSearchQAGoogle63.7%†–
Maths
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub78.6%–
FrontierMath Tier 4Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub49.0%–
OTIS Mock AIMEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub95.3%–
ProofBenchVals AI56.0%42.0%
LiveBench MathematicsLiveBench94.2%–
AIME (Vals)Vals AI96.7%–
AIME 2026MathArena99.2%–
HMMT February 2026MathArena97.7%–
USAMO 2026MathArena95.2%–
MathArena ApexMathArena54.2%–
Arena MathsArena (LMArena)1459†1470
Knowledge
SimpleQA VerifiedEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub45.1%–
LiveBench 2.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench–63.5%
LiveBench ResearchLiveBench–75.5%
LiveBench 1.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench79.3%–
AA-Omniscience v1.1Artificial Analysis–16.4
MMLU-ProVals AI87.5%–
LegalBenchVals AI86.0%–
CorpFinVals AI65.3%–
TaxEvalVals AI74.0%–
MedQAVals AI96.1%–
PRBench FinanceScale AI SEAL45.6%†–
PRBench LegalScale AI SEAL44.4%†–
MultiNRCScale AI SEAL58.3%†–
BioMysteryBenchVals AI–67.4%
CaseLaw v2Vals AI63.8%–
Excel Modeling BenchmarkVals AI–57.1%
Excel Modeling Benchmark v1.1Vals AI–69.5%
MedCodeVals AI41.3%–
MedScribeVals AI77.5%–
Public Benefits Bench v1.1Vals AI–58.1%
EBR-benchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub25.4%–
AA-Omniscience v1.1: accuracyArtificial Analysis–36.4%
AA-Omniscience v1.1: non-hallucinationArtificial Analysis–68.7%
Instruction following
LiveBench LanguageLiveBench82.6%–
LiveBench Instruction FollowingLiveBench70.2%–
IFBenchArtificial Analysis74.0%–
Arena Instruction FollowingArena (LMArena)1460†1450
Human preference
Arena TextArena (LMArena)1465†1449
EQ-Bench 4EQ-Bench1258†–
Arena Creative WritingArena (LMArena)1433†1413
Arena Multi-turnArena (LMArena)1480†1445
Arena Longer QueriesArena (LMArena)1477†1461
Multimodal
Arena VisionArena (LMArena)1292†1263
LiveBench DesignLiveBench–70.8%
MMMU-ProArtificial Analysis78.4%76.4%
VISTAScale AI SEAL50.9%†–
MMMU-Pro (Vals)Vals AI87.5%–
MortgageTaxVals AI68.3%–
VTBScale AI SEAL29.2%†–
Blueprint-Bench 2Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub27.1%†–
Code2Video-AAArtificial Analysis–821
AA-3DArtificial Analysis–859
Long context
AA-LCR v1.1Artificial Analysis82.0%88.3%
Arena DocumentArena (LMArena)1471†–
MLCRArtificial Analysis–18.3%
Composite
Epoch Capabilities IndexEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub157.8†–
LiveBench 2.0LiveBench–54.9%
LiveBench 1.0LiveBench78.0%–
AA Intelligence Index v5.0Artificial Analysis–28.5
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2Artificial Analysis39.043.7
AA Progress Index v1Artificial Analysis311.6318.2
Vals IndexVals AI–54.8
Vals Finance IndexVals AI–55.4%
Vals RSI IndexVals AI15.5%–
Vals Science IndexVals AI–29.6%
AA Cyber IndexArtificial Analysis–47.7
Safety & honesty
MASKScale AI SEAL89.7%†–
Metadata
AA Openness IndexArtificial Analysis–33.3

Data as of 2026-11-14. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.

DuelLab GameBench 2, release gb2-20261110-2acac640a228 (https://benchmarks.duellab.org/releases/gb2-20261110-2acac640a228/), CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Scores mapped to BenchLeader model names; not endorsed by DuelLab.

What changed

  • Step 5 Preview: 1 score revision.
  • GPT-5.4 (xhigh): 1 new result (MirrorCode).
  • Step 5 Preview: 7 score revisions.
  • GPT-5.4 (xhigh): BenchLeader Index 63.7 → 63.2.
  • GPT-5.4 (xhigh): 1 score revision.
  • Step 5 Preview: 2 new results (Vals Index, Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1.1).
  • Step 5 Preview: 1 score revision.
  • Step 5 Preview: BenchLeader Index 58.0 → 54.7.
  • GPT-5.4 (xhigh): 1 new result (AA Progress Index v1).
  • Step 5 Preview: 5 new results (AA Intelligence Index v5.0, AA Progress Index v1, HLE-Diamond (AA)…); 2 score revisions; Step 5 Preview cost per task moved from $1.03/M to $2.35/M (128% up).

Rankings: Best LLM overall · Best LLM for agents · Best cheap LLMs

GPT-5.4 vs Step 5 Preview: questions

Is GPT-5.4 better than Step 5 Preview?
GPT-5.4 (xhigh) leads on quality: 63.1 vs 54.3. The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; GPT-5.4 (xhigh) is ahead overall as of 14 Nov 2026, but check the category scores for your use.
GPT-5.4 vs Step 5 Preview: which is cheaper, and will that change?
Step 5 Preview is cheaper today: $1.43 against $5.63 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. No price change has been announced for either.
Is GPT-5.4 or Step 5 Preview better for coding?
GPT-5.4 scores higher in coding (65 vs 50 on the category index, where 50 is average). On SciCode, the top shared coding benchmark, it is 56.6% for GPT-5.4 against 58.9% for Step 5 Preview.
Which is faster, GPT-5.4 or Step 5 Preview?
Step 5 Preview streams ~2× faster (133 vs 66 output tokens per second, Artificial Analysis 7-day median).
Is GPT-5.4 or Step 5 Preview better for agents and tool use?
GPT-5.4 scores higher in agentic tasks (63 vs 50 on the category index, where 50 is average).
More questions (4)
Which is better for long documents?
Step 5 Preview scores higher on long-context benchmarks (69 vs 66). Both take about 1.1M tokens: GPT-5.4 1,050,000, Step 5 Preview 1,000,000.
Which has lower latency?
Step 5 Preview answers first: 24.3 s against 143.8 s to the first answer token, as Artificial Analysis measures it. Reasoning effort drives most of this: a higher setting thinks longer before it answers.
Do independent benchmarks agree on GPT-5.4 vs Step 5 Preview?
Across the 11 benchmarks both have, GPT-5.4 leads 3, Step 5 Preview leads 8. Every overall index that rates both puts GPT-5.4 ahead.
When was Step 5 Preview released?
Step 5 Preview was released on 18 Sep 2026.