DeepSeek R1 is 72.5% cheaper for input tokens ($0.55 vs. $2.00 per 1M tokens) and $2.19 vs. $8.00 for output tokens (3.6x cost advantage). In terms of operational performance, OpenAI o3 delivers lower response latency at 1150ms TTFT (300ms faster than DeepSeek R1) with 82 vs. 58 tok/s throughput. OpenAI o3 leads coding evaluations at 71.7% SWE-bench Verified vs. 49.2% for DeepSeek R1 and 87.7% vs. 71.5% on GPQA Diamond.
Verified daily via automated API latency tests and official documentation.
Zero-Shot RAG Verified
Verified Performance & Unit Economics Delta (12 Dimensions)
Daily synchronized metrics across token pricing, prompt cache economics, latency, throughput, and 5 capability benchmarks.
Metric / Dimension
DeepSeek R1
OpenAI o3
Net Delta / Advantage
Input Cost / 1M Tokens
$0.55
$2.00
DeepSeek R1 is 3.6x cheaper
Output Cost / 1M Tokens
$2.19
$8.00
DeepSeek R1 (72.6% lower)
Prompt Cache Read / 1M
$0.140
$0.500
DeepSeek R1 is 3.6x cheaper
Prompt Cache Write / 1M
$0.55
$2.00
DeepSeek R1 is 3.6x cheaper
Context Window (Max Output)
131k (33k out)
205k (100k out)
OpenAI o3 (1.6x larger context)
Avg TTFT Response Latency
1450ms
1150ms
OpenAI o3 (300ms faster)
Generation Speed (Throughput)
58 tok/s
82 tok/s
OpenAI o3 (+24 tok/s faster)
SWE-bench Verified (Coding)
49.2%
71.7%
OpenAI o3 (+22.5% lead)
GPQA Diamond (PhD STEM)
71.5%
87.7%
OpenAI o3 (+16.2% lead)
MMLU-Pro (Multi-Discipline)
84%
89.8%
OpenAI o3 (+5.8% lead)
MATH-500 (Quantitative Logic)
97.3%
98.6%
OpenAI o3 (+1.3% lead)
Inference Value Score (IVR)
64.8 / 100
60.6 / 100
DeepSeek R1 (+4.2 pts)
Interactive Monthly Token Economics & ROI Forecaster
Model production workloads across prompt, completion, and cached context tokens, or switch models on the fly.
DeepSeek R1 is cheaper at $0.55/1M input tokens ($2.19/1M output) compared to $2.00/1M input ($8.00/1M output) for OpenAI o3.
Which model has lower TTFT latency and higher tok/s throughput: DeepSeek R1 or OpenAI o3?
OpenAI o3 delivers faster first-token latency at 1150ms TTFT (82 tok/s throughput) compared to 1450ms TTFT (58 tok/s) for DeepSeek R1.
How do DeepSeek R1 and OpenAI o3 compare on SWE-bench coding and GPQA Diamond reasoning?
On SWE-bench Verified software engineering, DeepSeek R1 scores 49.2% versus 71.7% for OpenAI o3. On GPQA Diamond graduate-level STEM reasoning, DeepSeek R1 scores 71.5% versus 87.7% for OpenAI o3 (and 97.3% vs 98.6% on MATH-500).
When should you choose DeepSeek R1?
Choose DeepSeek R1 (DeepSeek) for open-weight chain-of-thought reasoning, synthetic data distillation, and complex mathematical verification — offering a 131k context window, 1450ms TTFT, and $0.55/1M input pricing ($0.140/1M cached reads).
When should you choose OpenAI o3?
Choose OpenAI o3 (OpenAI) for algorithmic synthesis, mathematical verification, PhD-level scientific research, and multi-step tool planning — offering a 204k context window, 1150ms TTFT, and $2.00/1M input pricing ($0.500/1M cached reads).
