Which is cheaper, DeepSeek R1 or o3-mini?

DeepSeek R1 is cheaper for both input ($0.55/M tokens) and output ($2.19/M tokens), compared to o3-mini at $1.10/$4.40 per million tokens.

Which is faster, DeepSeek R1 or o3-mini?

o3-mini is faster at 55 tokens/sec with a TTFT of 1500ms, compared to DeepSeek R1 at 45 tokens/sec and 1800ms TTFT.

Which has a bigger context window, DeepSeek R1 or o3-mini?

o3-mini has a 200K token context window, which is larger DeepSeek R1's 128K context window.

Which is better for coding, DeepSeek R1 or o3-mini?

o3-mini has a higher coding ELO of 1340 compared to DeepSeek R1's 1330, making it the stronger choice for code generation and programming tasks.

DeepSeek R1 vs o3-mini: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Name: DeepSeek R1 vs o3-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 significantly cheaper at $0.55/$2.19 per million tokens vs $1.10/$4.40. o3-mini offers a larger 200K context window vs 128K.

Updated: April 20, 2026 · ✓ Pricing verified

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	DeepSeek R1	o3-mini
Provider	DeepSeek	OpenAI
Input Price / 1M tokens	$0.500	$1.10
Output Price / 1M tokens	$2.15	$4.40
Context Window	128K	128K
Max Output Tokens	8,192	65,536
Arena ELO	1,310	1,280
Coding ELO	1,330	1,285
TTFT (ms)	1,800	350
Tokens/sec	45	25
Multimodal	No	No
JSON Mode	Yes	Yes
Function Calling	No	No
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 o3-mini

Choose o3-mini when you need: strong mathematical reasoning, good coding performance, affordable reasoning model, large output window. It excels at reasoning, math, coding, science tasks. Its 200K context window is larger, making it better for long-document processing.

Strengths:

Strong reasoning
Good math skills
Affordable reasoning

Best for:

reasoningmathgeneral-purpose

DeepSeek R1 vs o3-mini: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Side-by-Side Comparison

Frequently Asked Questions

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