Which model is better: DeepSeek R1 or OpenAI o4-mini?
DeepSeek R1 is 50.0% cheaper for input tokens ($0.55 vs. $1.10 per 1M tokens) and $2.19 vs. $4.40 for output tokens (2.0x cost advantage). In terms of operational performance, OpenAI o4-mini delivers lower response latency at 680ms TTFT (770ms faster than DeepSeek R1) with 125 vs. 58 tok/s throughput. OpenAI o4-mini leads coding evaluations at 68.1% SWE-bench Verified vs. 49.2% for DeepSeek R1 and 81.4% 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 o4-mini
Net Delta / Advantage
Input Cost / 1M Tokens
$0.55
$1.10
DeepSeek R1 is 2.0x cheaper
Output Cost / 1M Tokens
$2.19
$4.40
DeepSeek R1 (50.2% lower)
Prompt Cache Read / 1M
$0.140
$0.275
DeepSeek R1 is 2.0x cheaper
Prompt Cache Write / 1M
$0.55
$1.10
DeepSeek R1 is 2.0x cheaper
Context Window (Max Output)
131k (33k out)
205k (100k out)
OpenAI o4-mini (1.6x larger context)
Avg TTFT Response Latency
1450ms
680ms
OpenAI o4-mini (770ms faster)
Generation Speed (Throughput)
58 tok/s
125 tok/s
OpenAI o4-mini (+67 tok/s faster)
SWE-bench Verified (Coding)
49.2%
68.1%
OpenAI o4-mini (+18.9% lead)
GPQA Diamond (PhD STEM)
71.5%
81.4%
OpenAI o4-mini (+9.9% lead)
MMLU-Pro (Multi-Discipline)
84%
85.6%
OpenAI o4-mini (+1.6% lead)
MATH-500 (Quantitative Logic)
97.3%
97.8%
OpenAI o4-mini (+0.5% lead)
Inference Value Score (IVR)
64.8 / 100
63.7 / 100
DeepSeek R1 (+1.1 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 $1.10/1M input ($4.40/1M output) for OpenAI o4-mini.
Which model has lower TTFT latency and higher tok/s throughput: DeepSeek R1 or OpenAI o4-mini?
OpenAI o4-mini delivers faster first-token latency at 680ms TTFT (125 tok/s throughput) compared to 1450ms TTFT (58 tok/s) for DeepSeek R1.
How do DeepSeek R1 and OpenAI o4-mini compare on SWE-bench coding and GPQA Diamond reasoning?
On SWE-bench Verified software engineering, DeepSeek R1 scores 49.2% versus 68.1% for OpenAI o4-mini. On GPQA Diamond graduate-level STEM reasoning, DeepSeek R1 scores 71.5% versus 81.4% for OpenAI o4-mini (and 97.3% vs 97.8% 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 o4-mini?
Choose OpenAI o4-mini (OpenAI) for automated PR review, high-volume agentic coding loops, SQL/data analysis, and visual document reasoning — offering a 204k context window, 680ms TTFT, and $1.10/1M input pricing ($0.275/1M cached reads).
