💰 Unit Cost Winner DeepSeek V3
$0.14/1M in · $0.28/1M out
⚡ Latency & Speed Winner DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp) 310ms TTFT · 165 tok/s
💻 Coding (SWE) Winner DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp) 77.4% SWE-bench · 94.5% HumanEval
🧠 STEM Reasoning Winner DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp) 91.3% GPQA · 96.4% MATH-500
Which model is better: DeepSeek V3 or DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp)? DeepSeek V3 is 36.4% cheaper for input tokens ($0.14 vs. $0.22 per 1M tokens) and $0.28 vs. $0.65 for output tokens (1.6x cost advantage). In terms of operational performance, DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp) delivers lower response latency at 310ms TTFT (100ms faster than DeepSeek V3) with 165 vs. 78 tok/s throughput. DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp) leads coding evaluations at 77.4% SWE-bench Verified vs. 42.0% for DeepSeek V3 and 91.3% vs. 59.1% 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 V3 DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp) Net Delta / Advantage
Input Cost / 1M Tokens
$0.14
$0.22 DeepSeek V3 is 1.6x cheaper
Output Cost / 1M Tokens
$0.28
$0.65 DeepSeek V3 (56.9% lower)
Prompt Cache Read / 1M
$0.014
$0.007 DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp) is 2.0x cheaper
Prompt Cache Write / 1M
$0.14
$0.22 DeepSeek V3 is 1.6x cheaper
Context Window (Max Output)
131k (8k out) 1,049k (128k out) DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp) (8.0x larger context)
Avg TTFT Response Latency
410ms
310ms
DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp) (100ms faster)
Generation Speed (Throughput)
78 tok/s
165 tok/s
DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp) (+87 tok/s faster)
SWE-bench Verified (Coding)
42% 77.4% DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp) (+35.4% lead)
GPQA Diamond (PhD STEM)
59.1% 91.3% DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp) (+32.2% lead)
MMLU-Pro (Multi-Discipline)
75.9% 87.3% DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp) (+11.4% lead)
MATH-500 (Quantitative Logic)
90.2% 96.4% DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp) (+6.2% lead) Inference Value Score (IVR) 75 / 100 81.6 / 100 DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp) (+6.6 pts)
Interactive Monthly Token Economics & ROI Forecaster
Model production workloads across prompt, completion, and cached context tokens, or switch models on the fly.
Coding Agent
Enterprise RAG
High-Scale API
Model A (Baseline)
Qwen 3.8 Flash Next ($0.16/1M in · $0.47/1M out)
DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp) ($0.22/1M in · $0.65/1M out)
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite ($0.07/1M in · $0.30/1M out)
Gemma 4 31B IT ($0.12/1M in · $0.36/1M out)
Gemini 2.0 Flash ($0.10/1M in · $0.40/1M out)
Llama 4 Maverick ($0.20/1M in · $0.60/1M out)
GLM-5.3-Flash ($0.12/1M in · $0.40/1M out)
DeepSeek V3 ($0.14/1M in · $0.28/1M out)
Qwen 3.8 27B ($0.20/1M in · $0.60/1M out)
Llama 3.3 70B Instruct ($0.12/1M in · $0.30/1M out)
Gemini 3.8 Flash ($0.25/1M in · $1.50/1M out)
GLM-5.3 ($0.35/1M in · $1.00/1M out)
Grok 3 Mini ($0.30/1M in · $1.20/1M out)
GPT-4o Mini ($0.15/1M in · $0.60/1M out)
DeepSeek V4 Pro ($1.32/1M in · $3.96/1M out)
Gemini 2.5 Flash ($0.30/1M in · $2.50/1M out)
DeepSeek R1 ($0.55/1M in · $2.19/1M out)
OpenAI o4-mini ($1.10/1M in · $4.40/1M out)
GPT-6.1 Sol ($2.00/1M in · $10.00/1M out)
Gemini 4 Argon ($2.00/1M in · $10.00/1M out)
OpenAI o3 ($2.00/1M in · $8.00/1M out)
Gemini 3.1 Pro ($1.25/1M in · $10.00/1M out)
OpenAI o3-mini ($1.10/1M in · $4.40/1M out)
GPT-5 ($2.50/1M in · $10.00/1M out)
Claude Opus 5.5 ($4.00/1M in · $20.00/1M out)
Grok 4 ($2.50/1M in · $12.50/1M out)
Gemini 2.5 Pro ($1.25/1M in · $10.00/1M out)
Claude 4.5 Sonnet ($3.00/1M in · $15.00/1M out)
Claude 3.7 Sonnet ($3.00/1M in · $15.00/1M out)
Grok 3 ($3.00/1M in · $15.00/1M out)
Claude 3.5 Haiku ($0.80/1M in · $4.00/1M out)
Mistral Large 2 (2411) ($2.00/1M in · $6.00/1M out)
GPT-4o ($2.50/1M in · $10.00/1M out)
GPT-6 Astra ($10.00/1M in · $50.00/1M out)
Claude 3.5 Sonnet ($3.00/1M in · $15.00/1M out)
Claude 4 Opus ($15.00/1M in · $75.00/1M out)
o1 ($15.00/1M in · $60.00/1M out)
Model B (Challenger)
Qwen 3.8 Flash Next ($0.16/1M in · $0.47/1M out)
DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp) ($0.22/1M in · $0.65/1M out)
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite ($0.07/1M in · $0.30/1M out)
Gemma 4 31B IT ($0.12/1M in · $0.36/1M out)
Gemini 2.0 Flash ($0.10/1M in · $0.40/1M out)
Llama 4 Maverick ($0.20/1M in · $0.60/1M out)
GLM-5.3-Flash ($0.12/1M in · $0.40/1M out)
DeepSeek V3 ($0.14/1M in · $0.28/1M out)
Qwen 3.8 27B ($0.20/1M in · $0.60/1M out)
Llama 3.3 70B Instruct ($0.12/1M in · $0.30/1M out)
Gemini 3.8 Flash ($0.25/1M in · $1.50/1M out)
GLM-5.3 ($0.35/1M in · $1.00/1M out)
Grok 3 Mini ($0.30/1M in · $1.20/1M out)
GPT-4o Mini ($0.15/1M in · $0.60/1M out)
DeepSeek V4 Pro ($1.32/1M in · $3.96/1M out)
Gemini 2.5 Flash ($0.30/1M in · $2.50/1M out)
DeepSeek R1 ($0.55/1M in · $2.19/1M out)
OpenAI o4-mini ($1.10/1M in · $4.40/1M out)
GPT-6.1 Sol ($2.00/1M in · $10.00/1M out)
Gemini 4 Argon ($2.00/1M in · $10.00/1M out)
OpenAI o3 ($2.00/1M in · $8.00/1M out)
Gemini 3.1 Pro ($1.25/1M in · $10.00/1M out)
OpenAI o3-mini ($1.10/1M in · $4.40/1M out)
GPT-5 ($2.50/1M in · $10.00/1M out)
Claude Opus 5.5 ($4.00/1M in · $20.00/1M out)
Grok 4 ($2.50/1M in · $12.50/1M out)
Gemini 2.5 Pro ($1.25/1M in · $10.00/1M out)
Claude 4.5 Sonnet ($3.00/1M in · $15.00/1M out)
Claude 3.7 Sonnet ($3.00/1M in · $15.00/1M out)
Grok 3 ($3.00/1M in · $15.00/1M out)
Claude 3.5 Haiku ($0.80/1M in · $4.00/1M out)
Mistral Large 2 (2411) ($2.00/1M in · $6.00/1M out)
GPT-4o ($2.50/1M in · $10.00/1M out)
GPT-6 Astra ($10.00/1M in · $50.00/1M out)
Claude 3.5 Sonnet ($3.00/1M in · $15.00/1M out)
Claude 4 Opus ($15.00/1M in · $75.00/1M out)
o1 ($15.00/1M in · $60.00/1M out)
Estimated Monthly Spend DeepSeek V3 $3.33
$0.14/1M in · $0.28/1M out
Prompt Cache: $0.014/1M read · $0.14/1M write
DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp) $6.09
$0.22/1M in · $0.65/1M out
Prompt Cache: $0.007/1M read · $0.22/1M write
A
When to Choose DeepSeek V3 Choose DeepSeek V3 (DeepSeek) for cost-sensitive batch text processing, drafting, and open-weight self-hosted inference — offering a 131k context window, 410ms TTFT, and $0.14/1M input pricing ($0.014/1M cached reads).
B
When to Choose DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp) Choose DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp) (DeepSeek) for ultra-low-cost open-weight multimodal MoE built for high-throughput visual document OCR, chart interpretation, and real-time autonomous coding agents — offering a 1,048k context window, 310ms TTFT, and $0.22/1M input pricing ($0.007/1M cached reads).
Related Questions & Decision Factors Which is cheaper: DeepSeek V3 or DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp)? DeepSeek V3 is cheaper at $0.14/1M input tokens ($0.28/1M output) compared to $0.22/1M input ($0.65/1M output) for DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp).
Which model has lower TTFT latency and higher tok/s throughput: DeepSeek V3 or DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp)? DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp) delivers faster first-token latency at 310ms TTFT (165 tok/s throughput) compared to 410ms TTFT (78 tok/s) for DeepSeek V3.
How do DeepSeek V3 and DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp) compare on SWE-bench coding and GPQA Diamond reasoning? On SWE-bench Verified software engineering, DeepSeek V3 scores 42% versus 77.4% for DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp). On GPQA Diamond graduate-level STEM reasoning, DeepSeek V3 scores 59.1% versus 91.3% for DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp) (and 90.2% vs 96.4% on MATH-500).
When should you choose DeepSeek V3? Choose DeepSeek V3 (DeepSeek) for cost-sensitive batch text processing, drafting, and open-weight self-hosted inference — offering a 131k context window, 410ms TTFT, and $0.14/1M input pricing ($0.014/1M cached reads).
When should you choose DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp)? Choose DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Exp) (DeepSeek) for ultra-low-cost open-weight multimodal MoE built for high-throughput visual document OCR, chart interpretation, and real-time autonomous coding agents — offering a 1,048k context window, 310ms TTFT, and $0.22/1M input pricing ($0.007/1M cached reads).
Explore High-Priority Related Model Matchups 