DeepSeek-R1 vs Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct
Claude Haiku 4.5 comes out ahead, 66 to 60 and 52 on our weighted score, though DeepSeek-R1 is 13% cheaper per token.
DeepSeekDeepSeek-R1
52/100- ECI138.8
- Price$0.70 / $4.88
- Context128K
- Our pick
AnthropicClaude Haiku 4.5
66/100- ECI142.2
- Price$1.00 / $5.00
- Context200K
ByteDance SeedSeed-OSS-36B-Instruct
60/100- ECI—
- Price—
- Context524K
Claude Haiku 4.5 is our pick
Claude Haiku 4.5 is the better all-round choice, scoring 66/100 against Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct (60) and DeepSeek-R1 (52). It leads on inputs & features. Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct wins on context window. The score weighs capability 67%, inputs & features 20%, context window 13%. Capability uses the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond and OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025), because Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has no Capabilities Index score yet.
- CapabilitySeed-OSS-36B-InstructShared benchmarks: Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 69.5% · Claude Haiku 4.5 68.9% · DeepSeek-R1 62.5%
- Lowest priceDeepSeek-R1DeepSeek-R1 $1.75 · Claude Haiku 4.5 $2.00 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend) · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct unpriced
- Longest contextSeed-OSS-36B-InstructSeed-OSS-36B-Instruct 524,288 · Claude Haiku 4.5 200,000 · DeepSeek-R1 128,000 tokens
- Widest inputsClaude Haiku 4.5DeepSeek-R1: Text · Claude Haiku 4.5: Text, Images, PDFs · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct: Text
- Self-hostingDeepSeek-R1 and Seed-OSS-36B-InstructPublishes downloadable weights (Apache 2.0)
| Measure | Weight | DeepSeek-R1 | Claude Haiku 4.5 | Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CapabilityShared benchmarks | 67% | 63 | 69 | 70 |
| Inputs & features | 20% | 35 | 80 | 35 |
| Context window | 13% | 24 | 32 | 49 |
| Overall | 100% | 52/100 | 66/100 | 60/100 |
Left out because at least one model lacks the data: price. The remaining weights were rescaled.
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | DeepSeek-R1DeepSeek | Claude Haiku 4.5Anthropic | Seed-OSS-36B-InstructByteDance Seed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | 138.8 | 142.2 (best) | — |
| ECI rank | #119 of 165 | #102 of 165 (best) | — |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | 71.7% (best) | 71.2% | 71.5% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | 53.3% | 66.7% | 67.5% (best) |
| SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions | — | 13.2% | — |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $0.70 (best) | $1.00 | — |
| Output | $4.88 (best) | $5.00 | — |
| Cached input | — | $0.10 | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $1.75 (best) | $2.00 | — |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate | — |
| Price source | Median of 11 providers | Official Anthropic API | — |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 128,000 tokens | 200,000 tokens | 524,288 tokens (best) |
| Max output | 32,768 tokens | 64,000 tokens | 524,288 tokens (best) |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | No | Yes | No |
| PDFs | No | Yes | No |
| Audio | No | No | No |
| Video | No | No | No |
| Reasoning | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | No | Yes | No |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | Open | Proprietary | OpenApache 2.0 |
| API model ID | — | claude-haiku-4-5 | — |
| API providers | 12 | 48 (best) | — |
| Released | Jan 20, 2025 | Oct 15, 2025 | Aug 20, 2025 |
| Knowledge cutoff | Jul 2024 | Feb 28, 2025 | Jul 2024 |
What would a month cost?
Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.
- DeepSeek-R1$16.76
- Claude Haiku 4.5$20.00
- Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct—
Which should you choose?
Which is better: DeepSeek-R1, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct?
Claude Haiku 4.5 is the better all-round choice, scoring 66/100 against Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct (60) and DeepSeek-R1 (52). It leads on inputs & features. Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct wins on context window. The score weighs capability 67%, inputs & features 20%, context window 13%. Capability uses the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond and OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025), because Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has no Capabilities Index score yet.
Which is cheaper, DeepSeek-R1, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct?
DeepSeek-R1 is cheaper at $0.70 input / $4.88 output per million tokens (median across 11 API providers). Claude Haiku 4.5 costs $1.00 input / $5.00 output per million tokens (official Anthropic API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $1.75 per million tokens for DeepSeek-R1 versus $2.00 for Claude Haiku 4.5 (1.1× as much). Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has no published per-token price.
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
Not every model here has a Capabilities Index score, so we compare the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond and OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025): Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 69.5%, Claude Haiku 4.5 68.9% and DeepSeek-R1 62.5%. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — DeepSeek-R1 71.7%, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 71.5%, Claude Haiku 4.5 71.2%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 67.5%, Claude Haiku 4.5 66.7%, DeepSeek-R1 53.3%.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for DeepSeek-R1, Claude Haiku 4.5 and Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.
Which has the bigger context window?
Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has the largest context window at 524,288 tokens, against 200,000 for Claude Haiku 4.5 and 128,000 for DeepSeek-R1. Maximum output per response: DeepSeek-R1 up to 32,768, Claude Haiku 4.5 up to 64,000, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct up to 524,288 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
DeepSeek-R1 accepts text; Claude Haiku 4.5 accepts text, images and PDFs; Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct accepts text. Claude Haiku 4.5 handles the widest range of inputs.
Are any of these open source?
DeepSeek-R1 and Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct publishes its weights (Apache 2.0) and can be self-hosted; Claude Haiku 4.5 is proprietary.
Which is newer?
Claude Haiku 4.5 is the newest, released Oct 15, 2025. Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct came out Aug 20, 2025; DeepSeek-R1 came out Jan 20, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: DeepSeek-R1 Jul 2024, Claude Haiku 4.5 Feb 28, 2025, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct Jul 2024.
How do you decide the winner?
Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Nov 2, 2026.
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