DeepSeek R1 vs Claude Opus 5
DeepSeek R1 for math/code reasoning. Claude Opus 5 for general enterprise tasks requiring reliability.
DeepSeek R1 is a reasoning model optimized for math, code, and multi-step logic — comparable to o3 on math benchmarks at a fraction of the cost. Claude Opus 5 is a general frontier model with superior document understanding and enterprise reliability. For pure reasoning tasks with no data sovereignty concerns: R1 is exceptional value. For everything else: Opus 5.
Side-by-side pricing
| DeepSeek R1 | Claude Opus 5 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | DeepSeek | Anthropic |
| Input price/1M | $0.55 | $5.00 |
| Output price/1M | $2.19 | $25.00 |
| Cache read/1M | $0.14 | $0.50 |
| Context window | 64K | 200K |
| Vision | ✗ | ✓ |
| Tool use | ✗ | ✓ |
| Prompt caching | ✓ | ✓ |
| Speed tier | Slow | Slow |
Prices verified 2026-08-20. See changelog for history.
Winner by task
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is DeepSeek R1 as good as OpenAI o3?
On mathematics and competitive programming benchmarks, DeepSeek R1 scores within 3-8% of o3 at 5-10× lower cost. On general reasoning and instruction following: o3 still leads. R1 is the best cost-efficiency option for pure math/code reasoning workloads.
Prices verified 2026-08-20. See methodology for calculation details.