Which model is better: DeepSeek R1 or DeepSeek-V4 Flash Vision Exp?

DeepSeek-V4 Flash Vision Exp is 74.5% cheaper for input tokens ($0.14 vs. $0.55 per 1M tokens) and $0.56 vs. $2.19 for output tokens (3.9x cost difference). In terms of operational performance, DeepSeek-V4 Flash Vision Exp delivers faster response latency with 140ms TTFT (1660ms faster than DeepSeek-R1). DeepSeek-V4 Flash Vision Exp leads coding benchmarks at 64.2% SWE-bench vs. 49.2% for DeepSeek-R1.
Verified daily via automated API latency tests and official documentation.

Verified Performance & Unit Economics Delta

Daily synchronized metrics from synthetic latency endpoints and benchmark evaluations.

Metric / Dimension DeepSeek R1 DeepSeek-V4 Flash Vision Exp Net Delta / Advantage
Input Cost / 1M Tokens $0.55 $0.14 DeepSeek-V4 Flash Vision Exp is 3.9x cheaper
Output Cost / 1M Tokens $2.19 $0.56 DeepSeek-V4 Flash Vision Exp (74.4% lower)
Prompt Cache Read / 1M $0.140 $0.014 DeepSeek-V4 Flash Vision Exp is 10.0x cheaper
Prompt Cache Write / 1M $0.55 $0.14 DeepSeek-V4 Flash Vision Exp is 3.9x cheaper
Avg TTFT Response Latency 1800ms 140ms DeepSeek-V4 Flash Vision Exp (+1660ms faster)
SWE-bench Verified (Coding) 49.2% 64.2% DeepSeek-V4 Flash Vision Exp (+15.0% lead)
Inference Value Score (IVR) 64.5 / 100 79.9 / 100 DeepSeek-V4 Flash Vision Exp (+15.4 pts)

Interactive Monthly Token Economics & ROI Forecaster

Model your expected production workload across prompt (input) and completion (output) tokens with prompt caching economics.

Live Calculation Engine
10.0M Tokens
100K 50M 250M 500M+
2.5M Tokens
100K 10M 50M 100M+

Estimated Monthly Spend

DeepSeek R1 $10.98

$0.55/1M in · $2.19/1M out

Prompt Cache: $0.140/1M read · $0.55/1M write

DeepSeek-V4 Flash Vision Exp $2.80

$0.14/1M in · $0.56/1M out

Prompt Cache: $0.014/1M read · $0.14/1M write

Projected Monthly Cost Reduction
$8.17 / mo
(74.5% lower cost with DeepSeek-V4 Flash Vision Exp)
A

When to Choose DeepSeek R1

Choose DeepSeek-R1 when you need Open-weights frontier reasoning and deep analytical problem solving at unmatched cost-per-token efficiency. and have an infrastructure budget aligned with $0.55/1M tokens.

B

When to Choose DeepSeek-V4 Flash Vision Exp

Choose DeepSeek-V4 Flash Vision Exp when you need Ultra-low-cost multimodal open weights with 1M context and multi-head latent attention for high-speed document and visual reasoning. and prioritize DeepSeek ecosystem integration at $0.14/1M tokens.

Related Questions & Decision Factors

Which is cheaper: DeepSeek R1 or DeepSeek-V4 Flash Vision Exp?

DeepSeek-V4 Flash Vision Exp is cheaper at $0.14/1M input tokens compared to $0.55/1M for DeepSeek R1.

Which model has lower latency: DeepSeek R1 or DeepSeek-V4 Flash Vision Exp?

DeepSeek-V4 Flash Vision Exp delivers faster response times with an average TTFT of 140ms vs 1800ms for DeepSeek R1.

When should you choose DeepSeek R1?

Choose DeepSeek-R1 when you need Open-weights frontier reasoning and deep analytical problem solving at unmatched cost-per-token efficiency. and have an infrastructure budget aligned with $0.55/1M tokens.

When should you choose DeepSeek-V4 Flash Vision Exp?

Choose DeepSeek-V4 Flash Vision Exp when you need Ultra-low-cost multimodal open weights with 1M context and multi-head latent attention for high-speed document and visual reasoning. and prioritize DeepSeek ecosystem integration at $0.14/1M tokens.

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