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DeepSeek-R1 vs o4

A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.

Updated

DeepSeek-R1 specs · o4 specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceDeepSeek-R1

    DeepSeek-R1 publishes pricing ($2.19 / 1M output tokens) while o4 does not.

  • Context windowo4

    o4 accepts 200K tokens vs 128K, 1.6× the room for long documents and codebases.

  • BenchmarksTie

    No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores.

  • Modalitieso4

    o4 supports 2 modalities (text, vision) vs 1 for DeepSeek-R1.

  • OpennessDeepSeek-R1

    DeepSeek-R1 ships open weights (MIT); o4 is API-only.

It's a genuine coin-flip between DeepSeek-R1 and o4: 2 category wins each, with the rest tied. DeepSeek-R1 publishes pricing ($2.19 / 1M output tokens) while o4 does not. o4 accepts 200K tokens vs 128K, 1.6× the room for long documents and codebases.

No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. They differ in modality coverage, DeepSeek-R1 handles text while o4 handles text, vision, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. DeepSeek-R1 ships open weights (MIT); o4 is API-only.

o4 is the newer of the two, released 11 months after DeepSeek-R1, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. DeepSeek-R1 is usually picked for reasoning and math workloads, while o4 sees more deployments in reasoning and math. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

SpecDeepSeek-R1o4
ProviderDeepSeekOpenAI
ReleasedJan 2025Dec 2025
Modalitiestexttext, vision
Context window128K tokens200K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1M$0.55 / 1M tokensPricing not published
Output · 1M$2.19 / 1M tokensPricing not published
Knowledge cutoff2024-07,
Open weightsYes (MIT)No
API availableYesYes

Pricing at scale

What you'd actually pay at typical workloads. Numbers come from each model's published per-million-token rates.

  • Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day$4.94 vs ,
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$49.35 vs ,
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$95.64 vs ,

Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates).

Price calculator

Estimated spend for the listed models at your usage. Numbers are derived from each model's published per-million-token rates.

  • DeepSeek-R1$0.165
  • o4Pricing unavailable

Benchmarks compared

Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.

DeepSeek-R1o4
  • GPQA71.5
Pick DeepSeek-R1 if

DeepSeek-R1 fits when…

  • Open-weight reasoning model on par with o1
  • MIT license
  • Cheap reasoning per token
  • Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (MIT).
Pick o4 if

o4 fits when…

  • Exceptional performance on hard math and reasoning benchmarks
  • Good at multi-step planning and verification
  • Strong scientific reasoning
  • Long-context tasks, handles 200K tokens vs 128K for DeepSeek-R1.
  • Multimodal needs covering vision.
Don't want either?

Consider DeepSeek-V3

DeepSeek's flagship 671B-parameter MoE, frontier-level quality at a tiny fraction of frontier prices.

See DeepSeek-V3 specsDeepSeek-R1 vs DeepSeek-V3o4 vs DeepSeek-V3

Frequently asked

  • Is DeepSeek-R1 or o4 cheaper?
    Per-token pricing isn't published for at least one of these models, check each model's spec page for current rates.
  • Which has the larger context window?
    o4 accepts 200K tokens vs 128K for DeepSeek-R1.
  • Is DeepSeek-R1 or o4 better for coding?
    Both DeepSeek-R1 and o4 are competitive on coding benchmarks. See each model's individual spec page for HumanEval and SWE-bench scores where published. For an opinionated pick, consult our Best LLM for Coding ranking.
  • Are either of these models open source?
    DeepSeek-R1 ships open weights (MIT). o4 is API-only.
  • When were DeepSeek-R1 and o4 released?
    DeepSeek-R1 was released by DeepSeek on 2025-01-20. o4 was released by OpenAI on 2025-12-15.
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