# DeepSeek vs Claude: V4.1 Flash costs 13x less than Opus 5.5

> DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is far cheaper and open-weight, while Claude Opus 5.5 scores 58 to its 32 on Artificial Analysis. Prices and scores as of October 29, 2026.

URL: https://claudegpt.si/news/deepseek-vs-claude-2026  
Published: 2026-10-29T22:51:15.220Z  
Author: ClaudeGPT Si Newsroom  
Section: Reviews  
Topics: DeepSeek, Claude, Anthropic, Comparison, API pricing, Benchmarks  
Publisher: ClaudeGPT Si

## Key takeaways

- As of October 29, 2026, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash costs $0.30 input and $1.20 output per million tokens at peak, against $4 and $20 for Claude Opus 5.5.
- Artificial Analysis scores Opus 5.5 at 58 and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 at 32 on its Intelligence Index.
- DeepSeek's weights are MIT-licensed, and its own model card shows it matching Claude Opus 5.0 on some coding tests but trailing on harder ones.

DeepSeek vs Claude comes down to price against peak capability. As of October 29, 2026, DeepSeek's cheapest API model, [DeepSeek V4.1 Flash](https://huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash), costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens at peak hours, while Anthropic's top model, Claude Opus 5.5, costs $4 and $20. Claude scores higher on independent tests. DeepSeek's weights are open and its price is a fraction of Claude's.

This comparison is based on the products' docs and published results. We did not test either one hands-on.

## DeepSeek vs Claude at a glance

| | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash | Claude Opus 5.5 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Maker | DeepSeek | Anthropic | Anthropic |
| Weights | Open, MIT license | Closed | Closed |
| API input, per 1M tokens | $0.15 off-peak, $0.30 peak | $4 | $2 |
| API output, per 1M tokens | $0.60 off-peak, $1.20 peak | $20 | $10 |
| Cache-hit input, per 1M tokens | $0.003 off-peak, $0.006 peak | $0.20 | $0.10 |
| Context window | 1M tokens | 1M tokens (Artificial Analysis) | 1M tokens (Artificial Analysis) |
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index | 32 | 58 | 54 |
| Output speed, tokens per second | 179 | 97 | 138 |
| Cost to run the Index, per task | $0.60 | $10.04 | $10.02 |

Prices are from [DeepSeek's pricing page](https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing) and [Anthropic's pricing page](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing), read on October 29, 2026. Intelligence Index, speed and cost per task are from [Artificial Analysis](https://artificialanalysis.ai/leaderboards/models), read the same day, for the highest reasoning setting of each model. Artificial Analysis does not date the leaderboard page. DeepSeek's page defines peak as 01:00 to 04:00 and 06:00 to 10:00 UTC on weekdays, excluding Chinese public holidays, and prices may change.

## Price: DeepSeek is far cheaper

At peak rates, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash input costs $0.30 per million tokens against $4 for Opus 5.5, about 13 times less. Output is $1.20 against $20, about 17 times less. Off-peak, DeepSeek's rates are half of that. DeepSeek also sells a larger model, deepseek-v4-pro, at $1.32 input and $3.96 output at peak, and half that off-peak.

Anthropic's cheapest current model is Claude Haiku 5.5. For prompts up to 100,000 tokens it costs $0.10 input and $0.50 output per million tokens, which undercuts DeepSeek's peak price. Above 100,000 tokens it rises to $0.50 and $2.50. Anthropic lists batch processing at a 50% discount. Our earlier piece on [Claude Opus 5.5 pricing](https://claudegpt.si/news/claude-opus-5-5-pricing) covers the tiers in more detail.

Artificial Analysis puts the cost of running its whole Intelligence Index at $0.60 per task for DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and $10.04 for Opus 5.5. That gap matters more than the list price, because it includes how many tokens each model spends thinking.

## Quality: Claude leads on independent tests

On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, Opus 5.5 scores 58 and Sonnet 5.5 scores 54. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 scores 32, which is the best of the DeepSeek models Artificial Analysis lists. DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 scores 23. Artificial Analysis says Opus 5.5 ranks second of 57 models it compares it with. Haiku 5.5 at its highest setting scores 36.

DeepSeek's own [model card](https://huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash) tells a closer story, but it is self-reported. DeepSeek compares V4.1 Flash with Claude Opus 5.0, an older model than Opus 5.5, at maximum reasoning effort:

| Benchmark (DeepSeek's own run) | Claude Opus 5.0 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash |
| --- | --- | --- |
| GPQA Diamond | 93.4 | 90.9 |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 56.3 | 36.8 |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 89.1 | 90.6 |
| Terminal-Bench 3.0 | 43.3 | 30.0 |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 | 51.8 | 31.2 |
| DeepSWE v1.1 | 74.0 | 74.2 |

On the older coding tests, DeepSeek matches or edges out Opus 5.0. On the harder ones, and on general knowledge, Opus 5.0 is well ahead. These are DeepSeek's settings, and the card compares against a previous Claude generation, so treat the table as the lab's claim and the Artificial Analysis scores as the better guide to Opus 5.5.

## Open weights, context and speed

DeepSeek publishes V4.1 Flash under an MIT license. The card describes a mixture-of-experts model, which runs only part of its network for each token, with 8 billion parameters active per token during prefill and 16 billion during decoding. It accepts images and text and produces text. The card says 552 billion backbone parameters, while the Hugging Face size box shows 763 billion, and the two do not reconcile. We explain the release in [DeepSeek V4.1 Flash explained](https://claudegpt.si/news/deepseek-v4-1-flash-explained).

Claude's models are closed and available through Anthropic's API and apps. Both families list a 1M-token context window, and DeepSeek lists a 384K maximum output. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is faster than Opus 5.5 on Artificial Analysis, at 179 tokens per second against 97, though Haiku 5.5 at its highest setting reaches 236.

## Apps and plans

DeepSeek's chat app is not covered by the API pricing above. See [is DeepSeek free](https://claudegpt.si/news/is-deepseek-free) for what its apps cost. Claude's consumer plans, per [Anthropic's pricing page](https://claude.com/pricing) on October 29, 2026: Free at $0, Pro at $20 a month billed monthly or $17 a month billed annually, and Max from $100 a month. Pro includes Opus, Sonnet and Haiku.

## What we don't know

Artificial Analysis has no side-by-side scores for Claude and DeepSeek on its V4.1 Flash page, and its own leaderboard page carries no date. DeepSeek's card gives no release date, though Artificial Analysis lists October 17, 2026. Prices on both sides change, so check the pricing pages before committing a budget. DeepSeek says per-request search and fetch billing begins on November 1, 2026, which will matter to anyone using its tools.

## Frequently asked questions

### Is DeepSeek better than Claude?

Not on independent scores. Artificial Analysis rates Claude Opus 5.5 at 58 and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 at 32 on its Intelligence Index. DeepSeek costs far less per token and publishes open weights.

### Is DeepSeek cheaper than Claude?

Yes. As of October 29, 2026, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash costs $0.30 input and $1.20 output per million tokens at peak, half that off-peak. Claude Opus 5.5 costs $4 and $20, and Sonnet 5.5 costs $2 and $10. Claude Haiku 5.5 is cheaper than DeepSeek's peak rate on short prompts.

### Is DeepSeek open source and Claude not?

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash weights are released under an MIT license on Hugging Face. Claude models are closed and used through Anthropic's API and apps.

### Which is better for coding, DeepSeek or Claude?

DeepSeek's own card shows V4.1 Flash matching Claude Opus 5.0 on Terminal-Bench 2.1 and DeepSWE, and trailing on Terminal-Bench 3.0 and 4.0. Those are self-reported and use an older Claude model.

## Sources

- [DeepSeek API models and pricing](https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing), DeepSeek
- [DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash model card](https://huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash), DeepSeek on Hugging Face
- [Claude API pricing](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing), Anthropic
- [Claude plans and pricing](https://claude.com/pricing), Anthropic
- [AI model leaderboard](https://artificialanalysis.ai/leaderboards/models), Artificial Analysis
- [DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017](https://artificialanalysis.ai/models/deepseek-v4-1-flash-1017), Artificial Analysis
- [Claude Opus 5.5](https://artificialanalysis.ai/models/claude-opus-5-5), Artificial Analysis