Step 5 Preview vs Grok 4.6
Step 5 Preview is 2.1× cheaper for typical traffic ; Grok 4.6 scores higher on the Artificial Analysis intelligence index (44.3 vs 43.7).
Prices checked Oct 21, 2026
| Step 5 Preview | Grok 4.6 | |
|---|---|---|
| Developer | Stepfun | xAI |
| Input / 1M tokens | $1.00 | $2.00 |
| Output / 1M tokens | $2.70 | $6.00 |
| Cached input / 1M | $0.10 | $0.50 |
| Context window | 1.05M | 500K |
| Max output | 64K | 450K |
| Intelligence index | 43.7 | 44.3 |
| Image input | Yes | Yes |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes |
| Reasoning mode | Yes | Yes |
| Open weights | Yes | No |
Monthly cost for common workloads
| Workload | Step 5 Preview | Grok 4.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Customer chatbot 1,000 conversations a day, 8 turns each | $392 | $900 |
| Document Q&A (RAG) 500 questions a day over retrieved documents | $102 | $212 |
| Coding / tool-using agent 200 tasks a day, long tool-heavy contexts | $182 | $459 |
| Content generation 30 long articles a day | $8.77 | $18.90 |
| Classification / extraction 100,000 short items a day | $1,021 | $2,070 |
Estimates include cached-input discounts where a model offers them. Try your own numbers in the cost calculator.
Which one to choose
- Lowest cost: Step 5 Preview — 2.1× cheaper on a 3:1 input/output mix.
- Longer documents: Step 5 Preview reads up to 1.05M tokens at once.
- Capabilities: Step 5 Preview — vision, tools, reasoning, JSON, open weights; Grok 4.6 — vision, tools, reasoning, JSON.