DeepSeek R1 vs DeepSeek V3: which is better?

DeepSeek R1 leads on combined benchmark scores (88.2 vs 83.9) across general knowledge, coding, and math, as of 2026-07-27.

Which is cheaper, DeepSeek R1 or DeepSeek V3?

DeepSeek V3 is cheaper on a typical API workload, at roughly 2.9x lower cost than the alternative at published per-token rates.

DeepSeek R1 vs DeepSeek V3

DeepSeek R1 leads on benchmarks; DeepSeek V3 is cheaper to run, about 2.9× less.

Updated 2026-07-27

DeepSeek R1

DeepSeek · Open

88.2

Combined index

Leads

DeepSeek V3

DeepSeek · Open

83.9

Combined index

Benchmarks

General knowledge (MMLU)

86.9

83.9

Coding

82.5

80.6

Math

95.1

87.2

API pricing

$0.55 Input / 1M ~$0.28

$2.19 Output / 1M ~$0.42

$21.95 Monthly, est. $7.7

Monthly estimate assumes 20M input + 5M output tokens. Prices marked ~ are representative hosted rates for open-weight models and vary by provider. Run your own numbers in the cost calculator.

DeepSeek R1 costs → DeepSeek V3 costs → Full leaderboard → All comparisons →