API cost decision in 10 seconds

NewPerceptron Mk1 vs Step 3.5 Flash

Pick Step 3.5 Flash when budget and context both matter.

Page updated: 2026-05-26T10:03:26Z Data confirmed: 2026-05-26T12:38:15Z Prices normalized to USD per 1M tokens Sample workload: 1M input + 500K output

Budget verdict

Pick Step 3.5 Flash when budget and context both matter.

On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Step 3.5 Flash is estimated at $0.24 vs $0.9 for Perceptron Mk1, saving $0.66 (73.3% lower).

Cost-first pickStep 3.5 Flash

Context-first pickStep 3.5 Flash

Sample savings$0.6673.3%

10x traffic gap$6.6

Step 3.5 Flash is cheaper on the standard workload and also has the larger context window. At 10x that traffic, the same price gap is about $6.6. Use the calculator below to replace the sample workload with your own token volume.

Cost sensitivity

Workload Sensitivity

Same prices, different token mixes.

Step 3.5 Flash stays cheaper across input-heavy, balanced, and output-heavy sample workloads.

Workload shape	Token mix	Better pick	Perceptron Mk1	Step 3.5 Flash
Input-heavy / RAG	5M input + 500K output	Step 3.5 Flash	$1.5	$0.6
Balanced workload	1M input + 1M output	Step 3.5 Flash	$1.65	$0.39
Output-heavy chatbot	1M input + 5M output	Step 3.5 Flash	$7.65	$1.59

Cheaper input Step 3.5 Flash $0.15 vs $0.09 / 1M

Step 3.5 Flash is $0.06 cheaper per 1M input tokens (40% lower; 1.67x difference).

Cheaper output Step 3.5 Flash $1.5 vs $0.3 / 1M

Step 3.5 Flash is $1.2 cheaper per 1M output tokens (80% lower; 5x difference).

Larger context Step 3.5 Flash 32.77K vs 262.14K

Step 3.5 Flash has 229.38K more context (8x larger).

Sample workload Step 3.5 Flash $0.9 vs $0.24

Step 3.5 Flash is $0.66 cheaper on the standard workload (73.3% lower).

Estimate your workload cost

Your Workload Cost

Prices are normalized to USD per 1M tokens.

Monthly input tokens Monthly output tokens

Perceptron Mk1 Calculating… Estimated API cost

Step 3.5 Flash Calculating… Estimated API cost

Cheaper for this workload Calculating… Difference: calculating…

This estimate uses normalized public API pricing per 1M tokens. It is a planning aid, not a billing quote. Verify provider pricing, limits, and terms before production use.

Quick Decision

Verdict

Step 3.5 Flash has the lower input price; Step 3.5 Flash has the lower output price; Step 3.5 Flash offers the larger context window. For the 1M input plus 500K output sample, Step 3.5 Flash is cheaper for the standard workload.

For a 1M input token plus 500K output token workload, the estimated API cost is $0.9 for Perceptron Mk1 and $0.24 for Step 3.5 Flash.

Best Fit

Choose Perceptron Mk1 when its provider, model quality, latency, or availability is more important than the numeric price/context winner.

Choose Step 3.5 Flash when you care most about lower input-token price, lower output-token price, and larger context window.

Decision Notes

On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Step 3.5 Flash is estimated at $0.24 vs $0.9 for Perceptron Mk1, saving $0.66 (73.3% lower).
Step 3.5 Flash is $0.66 cheaper on the standard workload (73.3% lower).
Step 3.5 Flash is $0.06 cheaper per 1M input tokens (40% lower; 1.67x difference).
Step 3.5 Flash is $1.2 cheaper per 1M output tokens (80% lower; 5x difference).
Step 3.5 Flash has 229.38K more context (8x larger).

Head-to-Head Specs

Feature	NewPerceptron Mk1 (Perceptron)	Step 3.5 Flash (StepFun)
Input Price prompt tokens per 1M	$0.15	$0.09
Completion Price per 1M tokens	$1.5	$0.3
Sample Workload Cost 1M input + 500K output	$0.9	$0.24
Context Window	32.77K	262.14K
Release Date	2026-05-12	2026-01-29

Use-Case Decision Matrix

Use case	Better pick	Why
Budget-constrained production	Step 3.5 Flash	On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Step 3.5 Flash is estimated at $0.24 vs $0.9 for Perceptron Mk1, saving $0.66 (73.3% lower).
High-volume input processing	Step 3.5 Flash	Lower prompt-token price matters most when prompts, retrieved passages, or documents dominate the bill.
Long responses and chatbots	Step 3.5 Flash	Lower output-token price matters most when assistants generate many completion tokens.
RAG or long-document work	Step 3.5 Flash	A larger context window leaves more room for retrieved passages, conversation history, or source files.

Related Alternatives

Same-provider lower-cost swaps

No lower-cost same-provider swap is currently tracked for this pair.

Larger context near this budget

Llama 4 Scout offers 10M context with $0.23 sample workload cost.
Owl Alpha offers 1.05M context with $0 sample workload cost.
DeepSeek V4 Flash offers 1.05M context with $0.2 sample workload cost.
DeepSeek V4 Pro offers 1.05M context with $0.87 sample workload cost.

Popular competitors

DeepSeek V4 Flash · DeepSeek · #1
Hy3 preview · Tencent · #2
Claude Opus 4.7 · Anthropic · #3
Claude Sonnet 4.6 · Anthropic · #4

Cheaper alternatives

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Larger context alternatives

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Provider catalogs

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Perceptron catalog

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StepFun catalog

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Perceptron Mk1

Perceptron Mk1 (Mark One) is Perceptron's highest-quality vision-language model for video and embodied reasoning.** It accepts image and video inputs paired with natural language queries, and produces detailed visual understanding...

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash is StepFun's most capable open-source foundation model. Built on a sparse Mixture of Experts (MoE) architecture, it selectively activates only 11B of its 196B parameters per token....