DeepSeek R1 vs o3: which is better?

o3 leads on combined benchmark scores (95.1 vs 88.2) across general knowledge, coding, and math, as of 2026-07-27.

Which is cheaper, DeepSeek R1 or o3?

DeepSeek R1 is cheaper on a typical API workload, at roughly 3.6x lower cost than the alternative at published per-token rates.

DeepSeek R1 vs o3

o3 leads on benchmarks; DeepSeek R1 is cheaper to run, about 3.6× less.

Updated 2026-07-27

DeepSeek R1

DeepSeek · Open

88.2

Combined index

OpenAI · Closed

95.1

Combined index

Leads

Benchmarks

General knowledge (MMLU)

86.9

91.6

Coding

82.5

95.8

Math

95.1

97.9

API pricing

$0.55 Input / 1M $2.0

$2.19 Output / 1M $8.0

$21.95 Monthly, est. $80.0

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 → o3 costs → Full leaderboard → All comparisons →