Which is cheaper, DeepSeek R1 or GPT-4.1 Mini?

GPT-4.1 Mini is cheaper for both input ($0.40/M tokens) and output ($1.60/M tokens), compared to DeepSeek R1 at $0.55/$2.19 per million tokens.

Which is faster, DeepSeek R1 or GPT-4.1 Mini?

GPT-4.1 Mini is faster at 115 tokens/sec with a TTFT of 190ms, compared to DeepSeek R1 at 45 tokens/sec and 1800ms TTFT.

Which has a bigger context window, DeepSeek R1 or GPT-4.1 Mini?

GPT-4.1 Mini has a 1048K token context window, which is larger DeepSeek R1's 128K context window.

Which is better for coding, DeepSeek R1 or GPT-4.1 Mini?

DeepSeek R1 has a higher coding ELO of 1330 compared to GPT-4.1 Mini's 1230, making it the stronger choice for code generation and programming tasks.

DeepSeek R1 vs GPT-4 1.5-mini: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Name: DeepSeek R1 vs GPT-4 1.5-mini — 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 R1 is stronger for coding with a coding ELO of 1330 vs 1230. GPT-4.1 Mini is faster at 115 tokens/sec vs 45 tokens/sec. DeepSeek R1 ranks higher overall with an Arena ELO of 1310 vs 1240. GPT-4.1 Mini offers a larger 1048K context window vs 128K.

Updated: April 20, 2026 · ✓ Pricing verified

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	DeepSeek R1	GPT-4 1.5-mini
Provider	DeepSeek	OpenAI
Input Price / 1M tokens	$0.500	$0.400
Output Price / 1M tokens	$2.15	$1.60
Context Window	128K	128K
Max Output Tokens	8,192	4,096
Arena ELO	1,310	1,180
Coding ELO	1,330	1,200
TTFT (ms)	1,800	140
Tokens/sec	45	120
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 GPT-4 1.5-mini

Choose GPT-4.1 Mini when you need: 1m token context window at low cost, great balance of speed and quality, strong coding for a mini model, affordable for high-volume use. It excels at chatbots, long-context, cost-sensitive tasks. It is also the more cost-effective option between the two. Its 1048K context window is larger, making it better for long-document processing.

Strengths:

Affordable
Fast
Large context

Best for:

cost-effectivegeneral-purpose

DeepSeek R1 vs GPT-4 1.5-mini: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Side-by-Side Comparison

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Comparisons