Which is cheaper, DeepSeek R1 or Grok 3?

DeepSeek R1 is cheaper for both input ($0.55/M tokens) and output ($2.19/M tokens), compared to Grok 3 at $3.00/$15.00 per million tokens.

Which is faster, DeepSeek R1 or Grok 3?

Grok 3 is faster at 80 tokens/sec with a TTFT of 300ms, compared to DeepSeek R1 at 45 tokens/sec and 1800ms TTFT.

Which has a bigger context window, DeepSeek R1 or Grok 3?

DeepSeek R1 has a 128K token context window, which is equal to Grok 3's 128K context window.

Which is better for coding, DeepSeek R1 or Grok 3?

DeepSeek R1 has a higher coding ELO of 1330 compared to Grok 3's 1290, making it the stronger choice for code generation and programming tasks.

DeepSeek R1 vs Grok 3: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Name: DeepSeek R1 vs Grok 3 — 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 significantly cheaper at $0.55/$2.19 per million tokens vs $3.00/$15.00. DeepSeek R1 is stronger for coding with a coding ELO of 1330 vs 1290. Grok 3 is faster at 80 tokens/sec vs 45 tokens/sec.

Updated: April 20, 2026 · ✓ Pricing verified

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	DeepSeek R1	Grok 3
Provider	DeepSeek	xAI
Input Price / 1M tokens	$0.500	$3.00
Output Price / 1M tokens	$2.15	$15.00
Context Window	128K	200K
Max Output Tokens	8,192	8,192
Arena ELO	1,310	1,285
Coding ELO	1,330	1,280
TTFT (ms)	1,800	200
Tokens/sec	45	90
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. It is also the more cost-effective option between the two.

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 Grok 3

Choose Grok 3 when you need: strong benchmark performance, good reasoning capabilities, vision and multimodal support, fast for its capability tier. It excels at general-purpose, reasoning, coding tasks.

Strengths:

Latest xAI model
Strong reasoning
Large context

Best for:

general-purposecodingreasoning

DeepSeek R1 vs Grok 3: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Side-by-Side Comparison

Frequently Asked Questions

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