// head_to_head
GPT-4.1 Mini vs Step 5 Preview
Published LiveBench scores across all seven categories, live list pricing, context windows, and the measured cost of a point of capability — for both models, side by side.
GPT-4.1 Mini is the cheaper of the two; neither can be ranked on quality here.
GPT-4.1 Mini does not have a published LiveBench run, so this comparison covers price, context and declared capabilities only. A missing score means "not evaluated", not "worse" — the right way to separate these two is an eval on your own workload.
openai
GPT-4.1 Mini
- Blended / 1M
- $0.700
- Context
- 1.0M
- Released
- Apr 14, 2025
- Overall score
- Not evaluated
stepfun
Step 5 Preview
- Blended / 1M
- $1.43
- Context
- 1.0M
- Released
- Oct 8, 2026
- Overall score
- 58.6
Specs and pricing
| Metric | GPT-4.1 Mini | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench overall Weighted mean of the seven LiveBench category scores, 0–100. Higher is better. | — | 58.6 |
| Cost per point Measured benchmark spend divided by overall score — dollars per point of capability. | — | $0.0124 |
| Blended price / 1M 3:1 input:output mix, the usual shape of production traffic. | $0.700win | $1.43 |
| Input price / 1M | $0.400win | $1.00 |
| Output price / 1M | $1.60win | $2.70 |
| Cached input / 1M Price of an input token served from the prompt cache, where the provider publishes one. | $0.100 | $0.100 |
| Context window | 1.0M | 1.0M |
| Max output tokens | 33K | 64Kwin |
Benchmarks by category
An overall score averages away the thing you probably care about. These are the seven LiveBench categories scored separately — GPT-4.1 Mini on top, Step 5 Preview below, both out of 100.
What each one costs to run
Per-token prices are hard to feel. These are monthly list costs for both models across five workload shapes, using each provider's published cached-input rate where there is one.
| Workload | GPT-4.1 Mini | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Support chatbot 1.2K in / 400 out × 200K requests | $202.40/mo | $391.20/mo |
| RAG assistant 8K in / 600 out × 100K requests | $296.00/mo | $602.00/mo |
| Coding agent 40K in / 4K out × 20K requests | $280.00/mo | $512.00/mo |
| Document extraction 20K in / 1.5K out × 50K requests | $505.00/mo | $1,158/mo |
| Bulk classification 500 in / 20 out × 5M requests | $1,010/mo | $2,320/mo |
Which should you pick?
You are cost-constrained
GPT-4.1 Mini
Cheaper on blended list price at $0.700 per million tokens.
GPT-4.1 Mini vs Step 5 Preview FAQ
Which is better, GPT-4.1 Mini or Step 5 Preview?
GPT-4.1 Mini is the cheaper of the two; neither can be ranked on quality here. GPT-4.1 Mini does not have a published LiveBench run, so this comparison covers price, context and declared capabilities only. A missing score means "not evaluated", not "worse" — the right way to separate these two is an eval on your own workload.
Is GPT-4.1 Mini cheaper than Step 5 Preview?
GPT-4.1 Mini is cheaper. On a 3:1 input:output blend, GPT-4.1 Mini lists at $0.700 per million tokens and Step 5 Preview at $1.43 — GPT-4.1 Mini is 2.0× cheaper. Input and output are priced separately — GPT-4.1 Mini charges $0.400 in and $1.60 out, Step 5 Preview charges $1.00 and $2.70 — so the model that looks cheaper flips depending on how output-heavy your workload is.
Does GPT-4.1 Mini or Step 5 Preview have a bigger context window?
They are effectively the same — 1.0M for GPT-4.1 Mini and 1.0M for Step 5 Preview.
Do GPT-4.1 Mini and Step 5 Preview support prompt caching?
Both publish a cached-input rate: $0.100 per million for GPT-4.1 Mini and $0.100 for Step 5 Preview, against full input rates of $0.400 and $1.00. On a workload with a long stable prefix — a system prompt, a tool schema, a retrieved corpus — that changes the economics more than the headline price does.
Related comparisons
How these numbers are produced
- Price — provider list price from OpenRouter, refreshed every 15 minutes. “Blended” is a 3:1 input:output mix.
- Scores — LiveBench release 2026-10-25, using their own category map. Each model shows its strongest published run. A blank means “not evaluated”, never “bad”.
- Cost per point — the measured dollars LiveBench spent on the run, divided by the score it earned.
- “Win” — awarded only past a threshold: one full point on a benchmark score, 10% on a price, 25% on a context window. Anything tighter reports as a tie, because effort settings alone move a LiveBench score by more than that.
Published benchmarks rank models on someone else's tasks. Before committing, see LLM & agent evaluation for building an eval on your own.