# Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Step 5 Preview

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Step 5 Preview across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/claude-sonnet-4-6-vs-step-5-preview
- Last updated: September 21, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 3
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5

## Quick Verdict

Evidence is too thin for a benchmark verdict: Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Step 5 Preview share only 3 sourced benchmark rows.

## Summary

- Only 3 shared sourced benchmark rows are available. That is not enough for a broad capability verdict, so this mirror does not name an overall winner.
- Step 5 Preview has the lower published output-token price.
- Step 5 Preview has the larger published context window at 1M.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Step 5 Preview |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | Anthropic | StepFun |
| Type | Proprietary | Pending |
| Reasoning | Non-Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Context | 200K | 1M |
| Independent public score (not head-to-head) | 63.12 | null |
| Benchmarks Covered | 26 | 22 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $3.00 / $15.00 | $1.00 / $2.70 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Insufficient shared evidence
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 43.9 (Supported · #97/154)
- Step 5 Preview public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Step 5 Preview | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 59.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| OSWorld-Verified | 72.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Claw-Eval | 67.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CyberGym | 65.2% | 84.7% | Step 5 Preview |
| Gert Labs | 62.92% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| OSWorld 2.0 | 8.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| JobBench | 36.9% | 59.0% | Step 5 Preview |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | 57.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| ApprenticeBench | 2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | Coming soon | 85.0% | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 | Coming soon | 33.30% | Coming soon |
| AutomationBench | Coming soon | 44.0% | Coming soon |
| Toolathlon-Verified | Coming soon | 74.1% | Coming soon |
| MCP Atlas | Coming soon | 85.6% | Coming soon |
| APEX-Agents | Coming soon | 37.8% | Coming soon |
| DRACO | Coming soon | 83.3% | Coming soon |
| BrowseComp | Coming soon | 88.7% | Coming soon |
| Agents' Last Exam | Coming soon | 29.5% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Insufficient shared evidence
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 52.8 (Supported · #49/156)
- Step 5 Preview public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Step 5 Preview | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE-bench Verified | 79.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-Rebench | 60.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| React Native Evals | 80.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Vibe Code Bench | 51.48% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| cursorBench31 | 48.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| FrontierCode 1.1 Main | 24.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | 82.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | 77.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| DeepSWE | Coming soon | 67.7% | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | Coming soon | 85.0% | Coming soon |
| SciCode | Coming soon | 58.9% | Coming soon |
| ProgramBench | Coming soon | 80.5% | Coming soon |
| sweMarathon | Coming soon | 72.7% | Coming soon |
| MLS-Bench Lite | Coming soon | 40.5% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Insufficient shared evidence
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 67.9 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Step 5 Preview public-lane score: 78.5 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Step 5 Preview | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| CritPt | Coming soon | 20.9% | Coming soon |

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Insufficient shared evidence
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 54.1 (#34/49)
- Step 5 Preview public-lane score: 61.2 (#28/49)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Step 5 Preview | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| CharXiv | 77.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| OfficeQA Pro | Coming soon | 60.3% | Coming soon |
| MMMU-Pro | Coming soon | 76% | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Insufficient shared evidence
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 55.8 (Supported · #49/186)
- Step 5 Preview public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Step 5 Preview | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 89.9% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SuperGPQA | 95% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro | 79.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HLE | 49% | 46.5% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | 85.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro (Vals) | 87.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| GPQA-D | Coming soon | 93.5% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Insufficient shared evidence
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 46.6 (#88/124)
- Step 5 Preview public-lane score: Coming soon

### Mathematics

- Winner: Insufficient shared evidence
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 48.8 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Step 5 Preview public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Step 5 Preview | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3) | 32.400% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4) | 8.300% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Is there enough evidence to pick between Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Step 5 Preview?

Not yet. The models share only 3 sourced benchmark rows, so this mirror reports the available measurements and metadata without naming a broad winner.

### What can I compare safely on this page?

Published pricing, context windows, model type, and individual shared benchmark rows are directly comparable. Independent overall scores and non-overlapping benchmark coverage are labeled separately and should not be read as a controlled head-to-head result.

## Related Comparisons

- [Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Claude Fable 5.1](/compare/claude-fable-5-1-vs-claude-sonnet-4-6)
- [Step 5 Preview vs Claude Fable 5.1](/compare/claude-fable-5-1-vs-step-5-preview)
- [Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs GPT-6 Astra](/compare/claude-sonnet-4-6-vs-gpt-6-astra)
- [Step 5 Preview vs GPT-6 Astra](/compare/gpt-6-astra-vs-step-5-preview)

## Explore More

- [Claude Sonnet 4.6 profile](/models/claude-sonnet-4-6)
- [Step 5 Preview profile](/models/step-5-preview)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)