Model comparison
Gemini 2.5 Pro vs Step 3.5 Flash
Gemini 2.5 Pro is the stronger model overall, scoring 45.0 to 42.3 on the Noometry Index. Step 3.5 Flash costs 23× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 2.5 Pro's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.
Google
StepFunSummary
- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 2.5 Pro scores higher in 7 categories and Step 3.5 Flash in 1 category; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in long context, where Gemini 2.5 Pro leads 59.8 to 42.8.
- Step 3.5 Flash is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.30 per million input/output tokens, against $1.25 / $10 for Gemini 2.5 Pro.
- Gemini 2.5 Pro accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 256K.
- Step 3.5 Flash has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Gemini 2.5 Pro | Step 3.5 Flash | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | StepFun | |
| Noometry Index | 45.0 | 42.3 |
| Released | 2025-03-25 | 2026-01-29 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1.05M | 256K |
| Max output | 66K | 256K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $1.25 | $0.10 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $10 | $0.30 |
| Results tracked | 78 | 19 |
Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry
Category by category
Coding Too close to call
Gemini 2.5 Pro: 42.4 (#101), Step 3.5 Flash: 42.4 (#105)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Pro | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1452 | 1436 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 57.6% | — |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | 53.6% | — |
| Aider Polyglot | 83.1% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1227 | — |
| SciCode | 42.8% | — |
| GSO | 3.9% | — |
| WeirdML | 54% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | 85.9% | — |
| CadEval | 64% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 785.52 | — |
| AlgoTune | 1.51 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Gemini 2.5 Pro: 29.2 (#88), Step 3.5 Flash: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Pro | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 32.6% | — |
| GDPval | 23.3% | — |
| Remote Labor Index | 0.8% | — |
| TheAgentCompany | 30.3% | — |
| τ²-bench Banking | 13.7% | — |
| DeepResearch Bench | 42.8% | — |
| BALROG | 43.3% | — |
| LMArena Search | 1142 | — |
| METR Time Horizons | 55.4% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 573.64 | — |
Reasoning Gemini 2.5 Pro leads
Gemini 2.5 Pro: 28.8 (#99), Step 3.5 Flash: 22.2 (#202)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Pro | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1455 | 1411 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 4.9% | — |
| SimpleBench | 62.4% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 70.3% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 28.4% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 41% | — |
| CritPt | 2% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 20% | — |
| EnigmaEval | 5.6% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 89.8% | — |
| DTBench | 82.4% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 79.9% | — |
| LMCA | 34.8% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 145.32 | — |
| ForecastBench | 61.3 | — |
| LiveBench | 82.3% | — |
Math Step 3.5 Flash leads
Gemini 2.5 Pro: 32.5 (#213), Step 3.5 Flash: 42.6 (#84)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Pro | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1450 | 1408 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 24.6% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 0% | — |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 66.8% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 84.7% | — |
| Omni-MATH | 41.6% | — |
| LiveBench Math | 90.2% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 95.9% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 14.1% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 4.2% | — |
Knowledge Gemini 2.5 Pro leads
Gemini 2.5 Pro: 56.0 (#46), Step 3.5 Flash: 39.6 (#132)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Pro | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1452 | 1421 |
| GPQA Diamond | 85.3% | — |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 21.6% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 86.3% | — |
| Confabulations | 10.6% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 7% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 74.9% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Gemini 2.5 Pro: 45.2 (#18), Step 3.5 Flash: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Pro | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1263 | — |
| GeoBench | 86% | — |
| VPCT | 48% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1421 | — |
| SpatialViz-Bench | 44.7% | — |
Multilingual Gemini 2.5 Pro leads
Gemini 2.5 Pro: 55.3 (#31), Step 3.5 Flash: 50.5 (#119)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Pro | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1451 | 1385 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1507 | 1447 |
| LMArena French | 1472 | 1421 |
| LMArena German | 1487 | 1405 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1461 | 1354 |
| LMArena Korean | 1434 | 1352 |
| LMArena Russian | 1461 | 1385 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1473 | 1419 |
Instruction Following Gemini 2.5 Pro leads
Gemini 2.5 Pro: 75.0 (#75), Step 3.5 Flash: 73.1 (#124)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Pro | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1437 | 1385 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 80.6% | — |
| IFEval | 84% | — |
Long Context Gemini 2.5 Pro leads
Gemini 2.5 Pro: 59.8 (#5), Step 3.5 Flash: 42.8 (#117)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Pro | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1449 | 1402 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 91.7% | — |
Writing & Preference Gemini 2.5 Pro leads
Gemini 2.5 Pro: 63.7 (#62), Step 3.5 Flash: 58.8 (#113)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Pro | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1458 | 1403 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1454 | 1357 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1453 | 1405 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 83.8% | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1421 | — |
| WildBench | 85.7% | — |
| LiveBench Language | 67.8% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemini 2.5 Pro better than Step 3.5 Flash?
Gemini 2.5 Pro is the stronger model overall, scoring 45.0 to 42.3 on the Noometry Index. Step 3.5 Flash costs 23× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 2.5 Pro's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 2.5 Pro or Step 3.5 Flash?
Step 3.5 Flash is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.30 per million output tokens; Gemini 2.5 Pro lists at $1.25 and $10.
Is Gemini 2.5 Pro or Step 3.5 Flash better for coding?
They score almost the same on coding (42.4 vs 42.4); test both on your own repository before choosing.
Which has the bigger context window?
Gemini 2.5 Pro does, with 1.05M tokens against 256K.
How many benchmarks do Gemini 2.5 Pro and Step 3.5 Flash share?
17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 2.5 Pro has 78 scored results on Noometry and Step 3.5 Flash has 19.