AiCostCompare

GPT-5.6 Sol vs Step 3.5 Flash

Side-by-side API pricing and Artificial Analysis performance for GPT-5.6 Sol (OpenAI) and Step 3.5 Flash (Stepfun). Green cells mark the better value in each row.

Prices updated Sep 19, 2026, 2:07 PM UTC · refreshed hourly

GPT-5.6 Sol

OpenAI

Step 3.5 Flash

Stepfun

Pricing
Input $/1M$2.00$0.10
Output $/1M$10.00$0.30
Blended $/1M (3:1)$4.00$0.15
RAG example (30K in / 2K out)$0.08$0.0036
Quality & speed
Intelligence Index47.117
Coding Index77.4
Agentic Index50.5
Output speed (tok/s)650
Time to first token71.18s0s
Specs
Context window1.05M262K
Input modalitiesfile, image, texttext

FAQ

Which is cheaper, GPT-5.6 Sol or Step 3.5 Flash?

Step 3.5 Flash has the lower blended API price at $0.15 per 1M tokens (3:1 input:output mix), versus $4.00 for the other model. Prices are live from OpenRouter and refresh about hourly.

Which is better for RAG workloads?

For a typical RAG request (30K input / 2K output tokens), Step 3.5 Flash costs about $0.0036 per request versus $0.08. Also compare context windows: GPT-5.6 Sol offers 1.05M and Step 3.5 Flash offers 262K.

Which scores higher on Artificial Analysis benchmarks?

GPT-5.6 Sol leads on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (47.1 vs 17). Check coding and agentic indices on this page for workload-specific tradeoffs.