DeepSeek-R1 vs o3-mini vs o4-mini

o4-mini is the better all-round choice, scoring 59/100 against o3-mini (52) and DeepSeek-R1 (51). It leads on capability and inputs & features. DeepSeek-R1 wins on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

DeepSeek-R1 is cheaper at $0.70 input / $2.60 output per million tokens (median across 11 API providers). o3-mini costs $1.10 input / $4.40 output per million tokens (official OpenAI API price); o4-mini costs $1.10 input / $4.40 output per million tokens (official OpenAI API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $1.18 per million tokens for DeepSeek-R1 versus $1.93 for o3-mini (1.6× as much) and $1.93 for o4-mini (1.6× as much).

o4-mini scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): o4-mini 145.6 (#76 of 148), o3-mini 140.3 (#98 of 148) and DeepSeek-R1 139.0 (#104 of 148). Their confidence ranges do not overlap (143.0–147.4 vs 137.4–141.9), so the gap is a real one. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — o4-mini 79.6%, o3-mini 77.0%, DeepSeek-R1 71.7%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — o4-mini 81.7%, o3-mini 76.9%, DeepSeek-R1 53.3%.

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for DeepSeek-R1, o3-mini and o4-mini yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, o4-mini leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.

o3-mini and o4-mini have the largest context windows (200,000 and 200,000 tokens), against 128,000 for DeepSeek-R1. Maximum output per response: DeepSeek-R1 up to 32,768, o3-mini up to 100,000, o4-mini up to 100,000 tokens.

DeepSeek-R1 accepts text; o3-mini accepts text; o4-mini accepts text and images. o4-mini handles the widest range of inputs.

DeepSeek-R1 publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; o3-mini and o4-mini is proprietary.

o4-mini is the newest, released Apr 16, 2025. o3-mini came out Jan 31, 2025; DeepSeek-R1 came out Jan 20, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: DeepSeek-R1 Jul 2024, o3-mini May 2024, o4-mini May 2024.

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 Oct 4, 2026.