Which is cheaper, DeepSeek R1 or DeepSeek V3?

DeepSeek V3 is cheaper for both input ($0.27/M tokens) and output ($1.10/M tokens), compared to DeepSeek R1 at $0.55/$2.19 per million tokens.

Which is faster, DeepSeek R1 or DeepSeek V3?

DeepSeek V3 is faster at 85 tokens/sec with a TTFT of 220ms, compared to DeepSeek R1 at 45 tokens/sec and 1800ms TTFT.

Which has a bigger context window, DeepSeek R1 or DeepSeek V3?

DeepSeek R1 has a 128K token context window, which is equal to DeepSeek V3's 128K context window.

Which is better for coding, DeepSeek R1 or DeepSeek V3?

DeepSeek R1 has a higher coding ELO of 1330 compared to DeepSeek V3's 1300, making it the stronger choice for code generation and programming tasks.

DeepSeek R1 vs DeepSeek V3: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Name: DeepSeek R1 vs DeepSeek V3 — Pricing, Benchmarks & Speed Comparison 2026
Creator: LLMversus
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Pricing verified Apr 20, 2026By LLMversusUpdated June 14, 2026View methodology

⚡ Quick Answer

DeepSeek V3 is significantly cheaper at $0.27/$1.10 per million tokens vs $0.55/$2.19. DeepSeek R1 is stronger for coding with a coding ELO of 1330 vs 1300. DeepSeek V3 is faster at 85 tokens/sec vs 45 tokens/sec. DeepSeek R1 ranks higher overall with an Arena ELO of 1310 vs 1280.

Updated: April 20, 2026 · ✓ Pricing verified

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	DeepSeek R1	DeepSeek V3
Provider	DeepSeek	DeepSeek
Input Price / 1M tokens	$0.500	$0.259
Output Price / 1M tokens	$2.15	$0.420
Context Window	128K	128K
Max Output Tokens	8,192	8,192
Arena ELO	1,310	1,280
Coding ELO	1,330	1,300
TTFT (ms)	1,800	220
Tokens/sec	45	85
Multimodal	No	No
JSON Mode	Yes	Yes
Function Calling	No	Yes
Vision	No	No

When to Use DeepSeek R1

Choose DeepSeek R1 when you need: excellent reasoning at a fraction of o3's cost, open-source and self-hostable, top-tier math performance, very competitive with proprietary reasoning models. It excels at reasoning, math, coding, science tasks.

Strengths:

Excellent reasoning at a fraction of o3's cost
Open-source and self-hostable
Top-tier math performance
Very competitive with proprietary reasoning models

Best for:

reasoningmathcodingscience

When to Use DeepSeek V3

Choose DeepSeek V3 when you need: excellent coding performance for its price, open-source and self-hostable, very competitive benchmarks, extremely affordable. It excels at coding, general-purpose, cost-sensitive, open-source tasks. It is also the more cost-effective option between the two.

Strengths:

Excellent coding performance for its price
Open-source and self-hostable
Very competitive benchmarks
Extremely affordable

Best for:

codinggeneral-purposecost-sensitiveopen-source

DeepSeek R1 vs DeepSeek V3: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Side-by-Side Comparison

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