Standard Compute
Model comparison 2026

DeepSeek V4 Flash vs Step 5 Preview

DeepSeek V4 Flash
DeepSeek · Budget · Open weights
$0.12/1M · 1.0M ctx
Step 5 Preview
StepFun · Balanced · Proprietary
$1.51/1M · 1M ctx

Community vote

Pick a winner in each dimension. You can change your vote any time.

Output Quality
Correctness and depth of what it produces
Agentic Ability
Tool calls, instruction-following, and multi-step tasks
Speed
Tokens per second and time-to-first-token
Value for money
How much capability you get per dollar
Reliability
Consistent results: fewer refusals, loops and format breaks

Specs and pricing side by side

Spec
DeepSeek V4 Flash
Step 5
Maker
DeepSeek
StepFun
Blended price / 1M
$0.12
$1.51
Input / output
$0.09 in · $0.18 out / 1M tokens
$1.00 in · $2.70 out / 1M tokens
Context window
1.0M
1M
Open weights
Yes
No
Tool use
Yes
Yes
Reasoning
Yes
Yes
Output Quality
7.7
8.2
Agentic Ability
7.1
7.6
Speed
9.1
7.5
Value for money
9.4
7.1
Reliability
8.7
8.6

Pricing and capabilities synced from the OpenRouter catalogue. Scores are editorial (0–10).

Verdict: DeepSeek V4 Flash or Step 5?

Updated 2026-10-13

Choose DeepSeek V4 Flash if you want existing setups that still call the deepseek-v4-flash name. Choose Step 5 Preview if you want mid-priced agent loops that want more capability than a Flash-class model.

In our editorial scoring, DeepSeek V4 Flash leads in 3 of five dimensions (speed, value for money and reliability), while Step 5 Preview leads in 2. On price, DeepSeek V4 Flash runs about $0.12 per 1M tokens (blended) and is open-weight; Step 5 Preview is about $1.51 and proprietary.

Where DeepSeek V4 Flash falls short
  • Retired as a DeepSeek API name; calls run V4.1 Flash instead
  • Third-party hosts of the original weights vary in price and speed
Full DeepSeek V4 Flash breakdown →
Where Step 5 falls short
  • Still a preview, so behavior and price can change
  • Only StepFun serves it on OpenRouter, so there is no provider fallback
Full Step 5 breakdown →

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