DeepSeek vs OpenAI: Token Pricing, Speed & Intelligence
Full comparison of DeepSeek and OpenAI — live token pricing, latency, throughput, context window, strengths, weaknesses, and best use cases. Updated July 2026.
DeepSeek
Chinese frontier lab — DeepSeek V3 and R1 at remarkably low prices
DeepSeek is a Chinese AI lab that has released highly capable open-weight models at prices far below Western competitors. DeepSeek V3 matches GPT-4 class performance at $0.27/1M input tokens, while DeepSeek R1 is a reasoning model competitive with o1 at a fraction of the cost. Both models are open-weight.
OpenAI
GPT-4o, o3, and the world's most widely-used AI API
OpenAI is the creator of the GPT model family and the ChatGPT product. Their API provides access to frontier models including GPT-4o, the o-series reasoning models, and the GPT-4.1 long-context family. Pricing is competitive for frontier-tier capability, with prompt caching available on most models.
Key metrics
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Live token pricing
Strengths & weaknesses
DeepSeek
OpenAI
Key differentiators
Frequently asked questions
DeepSeek FAQs
How much does DeepSeek cost?
DeepSeek V3 costs $0.27/1M input and $1.10/1M output tokens — roughly 10× cheaper than GPT-4o for comparable capability. DeepSeek R1 is $0.55/1M input and $2.19/1M output.
Is DeepSeek open-weight?
Yes. Both DeepSeek V3 and DeepSeek R1 are open-weight models available on Hugging Face. You can self-host them on your own GPU infrastructure, though they require significant compute (671B parameters for R1).
How does DeepSeek R1 compare to OpenAI o1?
DeepSeek R1 scores comparably to OpenAI o1 on math and coding benchmarks at a fraction of the cost. R1 is open-weight and can be self-hosted, while o1 is proprietary. R1 is available via multiple inference providers including Fireworks AI and Together AI.
OpenAI FAQs
How much does the OpenAI API cost?
GPT-4o costs $2.50/1M input tokens and $10/1M output tokens. GPT-4o-mini is $0.15/$0.60 per 1M tokens. Prompt caching cuts input costs by 50% on eligible requests.
What is the difference between GPT-4o and o3?
GPT-4o is a fast, multimodal model optimised for chat, vision, and coding. o3 is a reasoning model that uses chain-of-thought to solve complex problems — it is slower and more expensive but significantly more capable on math, science, and hard coding tasks.
Does OpenAI support prompt caching?
Yes. Prompt caching is available on GPT-4o, GPT-4.1, o3, and o4-mini. Cached input tokens are billed at 50% of the standard input price, making long-context and repeated-system-prompt workloads significantly cheaper.
Provider resources
DeepSeek — Chinese frontier lab — DeepSeek V3 and R1 at remarkably low prices
DeepSeek is a Chinese AI lab that has released highly capable open-weight models at prices far below Western competitors. DeepSeek V3 matches GPT-4 class performance at $0.27/1M input tokens, while DeepSeek R1 is a reasoning model competitive with o1 at a fraction of the cost. Both models are open-weight.
DeepSeek V3 delivers GPT-4 class intelligence at $0.27/1M input tokens — the most disruptive price-to-performance ratio in the LLM market.
OpenAI — GPT-4o, o3, and the world's most widely-used AI API
OpenAI is the creator of the GPT model family and the ChatGPT product. Their API provides access to frontier models including GPT-4o, the o-series reasoning models, and the GPT-4.1 long-context family. Pricing is competitive for frontier-tier capability, with prompt caching available on most models.
The most widely-integrated LLM API — virtually every AI framework and tool supports OpenAI natively.
Key strengths compared
DeepSeek
- ▸DeepSeek V3 matches GPT-4 class at $0.27/1M input — 10× cheaper
- ▸R1 reasoning model competitive with o1 at a fraction of the cost
- ▸Both V3 and R1 are open-weight — can be self-hosted
OpenAI
- ▸Largest ecosystem & third-party integrations
- ▸Best-in-class function calling & structured outputs
- ▸Prompt caching on all major models
Provider category context
DeepSeek is a frontier lab, founded in 2023. OpenAI is a frontier lab, founded in 2015. Both are frontier lab providers — the comparison is primarily about pricing, model selection, and feature differentiation within the same tier.
How to choose between them
Both DeepSeek and OpenAI are frontier labs with proprietary models. Choose based on benchmark performance for your specific task: DeepSeek leads on deepseek v3 matches gpt-4 class at $0.27/1m input — 10× cheaper, while OpenAI leads on largest ecosystem & third-party integrations. For cost-sensitive workloads, compare the cheapest model tier from each provider in the pricing table above — the gap between efficient-tier models is often larger than between flagship models.