Standard Compute
Model comparison 2026

GPT-5.6 Terra vs Step 5 Preview

GPT-5.6 Terra
OpenAI · Balanced · Proprietary
$5.00/1M · 1.1M 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
GPT-5.6 Terra
Step 5
Maker
OpenAI
StepFun
Blended price / 1M
$5.00
$1.51
Input / output
$2.00 in · $12 out / 1M tokens
$1.00 in · $2.70 out / 1M tokens
Context window
1.1M
1M
Open weights
No
No
Tool use
Yes
Yes
Reasoning
Yes
Yes
Output Quality
8.0
8.2
Agentic Ability
7.8
7.6
Speed
8.4
7.5
Value for money
5.2
7.1
Reliability
9.2
8.6

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

Verdict: GPT-5.6 Terra or Step 5?

Updated 2026-10-13

Choose GPT-5.6 Terra if you want fast mid-tier work in existing GPT-5.6 setups. Choose Step 5 Preview if you want mid-priced agent loops that want more capability than a Flash-class model.

In our editorial scoring, GPT-5.6 Terra leads in 3 of five dimensions (agentic ability, speed and reliability), while Step 5 Preview leads in 2. On price, GPT-5.6 Terra runs about $5.00 per 1M tokens (blended) and is proprietary; Step 5 Preview is about $1.51 and proprietary.

Where GPT-5.6 Terra falls short
  • GPT-6.1 Sol scores higher and costs less per request ($0.067 vs $0.084)
  • Prompts over 272K tokens bill at higher rates
Full GPT-5.6 Terra 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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