Standard Compute
Model comparison 2026

Gemini 3.5 Flash vs Step 5 Preview

Gemini 3.5 Flash
Google · Balanced · Proprietary
$3.75/1M · 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
Gemini 3.5 Flash
Step 5
Maker
Google
StepFun
Blended price / 1M
$3.75
$1.51
Input / output
$1.50 in · $9.00 out / 1M tokens
$1.00 in · $2.70 out / 1M tokens
Context window
1.0M
1M
Open weights
No
No
Tool use
Yes
Yes
Reasoning
Yes
Yes
Output Quality
6.8
8.2
Agentic Ability
5.5
7.6
Speed
9.2
7.5
Value for money
5.2
7.1
Reliability
8.6
8.6

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

Verdict: Gemini 3.5 Flash or Step 5?

Updated 2026-10-13

Choose Gemini 3.5 Flash if you want existing Gemini 3.5 Flash setups until they move to 3.8 Flash. Choose Step 5 Preview if you want mid-priced agent loops that want more capability than a Flash-class model.

In our editorial scoring, Step 5 Preview leads in 3 of five dimensions (output quality, agentic ability and value for money), while Gemini 3.5 Flash leads in 1. On price, Gemini 3.5 Flash runs about $3.75 per 1M tokens (blended) and is proprietary; Step 5 Preview is about $1.51 and proprietary.

Where Gemini 3.5 Flash falls short
  • Superseded by Gemini 3.8 Flash, which scores higher at a similar or lower price
  • Weak on long agentic tasks (6.6% in Artificial Analysis's Terminal-Bench 4.0 run)
Full Gemini 3.5 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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