DeepSeek R1 vs GPT-5

The most-searched AI comparison of 2026. DeepSeek's reasoning model R1 beats GPT-5 on math benchmarks at 91% lower cost. Here's the full breakdown.

πŸ† R1 wins: MATH, AIME, GPQA Β· πŸ’° 91% cheaper

Benchmark showdown

BenchmarkDeepSeek R1GPT-5Winner
MATH-50097.3%94.5%R1 +2.8
AIME 202479.8%67.1%R1 +12.7
GPQA Diamond71.5%58.2%R1 +13.3
Codeforces96.3%96.8%GPT +0.5
MMLU-Pro84.0%87.4%GPT +3.4
SWE-bench Verified49.2%62.1%GPT +12.9
Multimodal (vision)N/A85.3%GPT only

R1 wins pure reasoning (math/logic/science). GPT-5 wins agentic coding, multimodal, and general knowledge.

Price showdown

DeepSeek R1

$0.34

/ M input tokens

$0.50

/ M output tokens

GPT-5

$3.25

/ M input tokens (10x)

$17.25

/ M output tokens (39x)

Processing 1M input + 1M output tokens:

$0.84 R1vs$22.75 GPT-5

R1 saves 97% on reasoning tasks

Which should you use?

Use DeepSeek R1 for...

  • β€’ Math problems (SAT, GRE, competition math)
  • β€’ Logic puzzles and reasoning chains
  • β€’ Scientific research β€” 13% better GPQA
  • β€’ Step-by-step reasoning tasks
  • β€’ Budget-constrained reasoning workloads
  • β€’ High-volume inference (91% savings at scale)

Use GPT-5 for...

  • β€’ Agentic coding (SWE-bench +13%)
  • β€’ Latest world knowledge (trained 2025+)
  • β€’ Vision / image understanding
  • β€’ Tool use in production
  • β€’ Creative writing with modern references
  • β€’ General knowledge Q&A (MMLU-Pro leader)

🎯 Best strategy: use both with smart routing

Your app probably has a mix of workloads. Use the right model for each, save money without quality loss.

# Math/logic/reasoning β†’ DeepSeek R1
def solve_math(question):
    return client.chat.completions.create(
        model="deepseek/deepseek-reasoner",  # $0.84/M combined
        messages=[{"role": "user", "content": question}],
    )

# Coding agents / latest knowledge β†’ GPT-5
def code_agent(task):
    return client.chat.completions.create(
        model="openai/gpt-5",  # $26.25/M combined
        messages=[...],
    )

# Don't know which? Let AI decide
client.chat.completions.create(model="auto", ...)  # smart router

Access both via one API

No Chinese phone needed for DeepSeek. No VPN needed for GPT. WeChat Pay supported.

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