DeepSeek R1 vs o3-mini
DeepSeek R1 for open-weight / cost-critical reasoning. o3-mini for closed-API reliability and ecosystem.
DeepSeek R1 at $0.55/M input vs o3-mini at $1.10/M — R1 is 2× cheaper on input, nearly 10× cheaper on output ($2.19 vs $4.40/M). Both score within 3-5% on MATH-500 and AIME benchmarks. The decision is primarily about trust, data residency, and ecosystem: R1 is open-weight (can self-host), o3-mini runs in OpenAI's infrastructure.
Side-by-side pricing
| DeepSeek R1 | o3-mini | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | DeepSeek | OpenAI |
| Input price/1M | $0.55 | $1.10 |
| Output price/1M | $2.19 | $4.40 |
| Cache read/1M | $0.14 | $0.55 |
| Context window | 64K | 200K |
| Vision | ✗ | ✗ |
| Tool use | ✗ | ✓ |
| Prompt caching | ✓ | ✓ |
| Speed tier | Slow | Medium |
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 o3-mini?
On most math and reasoning benchmarks, yes — within 3-5%. DeepSeek R1 scores higher on some math benchmarks (AIME 2024), o3-mini is ahead on others. For production use, the real differences are cost (R1 is 2× cheaper), data residency (R1 can self-host), and API reliability (OpenAI has better uptime SLAs).
Can I use DeepSeek R1 without sending data to China?
Yes — the weights are open-source (MIT license). Deploy R1 on your own cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP, on-prem) to keep all data in your jurisdiction. For managed inference, Groq, Together AI, and Fireworks AI all host R1 on US servers.
Prices verified 2026-08-20. See methodology for calculation details.