Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs DeepSeek V3

Performance benchmarks + pricing comparison — updated April 2026

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

Anthropic

Previous generation Sonnet. Still excellent for coding tasks at the same price point.

Input$3.00/M
Output$15.00/M
Context200K tokens
Best ForCoding assistants, web development, data analysis
Benchmark72/100

DeepSeek V3

DeepSeek

DeepSeek's latest general model. Competitive with Claude Sonnet at a fraction of the cost.

Input$0.140/M
Output$0.280/M
Context128K tokens
Best ForCost-effective coding and general tasks

Cost Comparison by Scenario

Estimated cost per project with 30% cache hit rate. Actual costs may vary based on usage patterns.

ScenarioClaude 3.5 SonnetDeepSeek V3Savings
Small Script (1K lines) $0.62 $0.01 DeepSeek V3 saves $0.60 (98%)
Medium Feature (10K lines) $4.66 $0.11 DeepSeek V3 saves $4.55 (98%)
Large Project (50K lines) $23.29 $0.53 DeepSeek V3 saves $22.76 (98%)
Code Review (5K lines) $1.20 $0.03 DeepSeek V3 saves $1.17 (97%)

Verdict

DeepSeek V3 wins on both price and performance — $0.140/M input with a benchmark score of N/A/100.

For most developers, this is the clear choice between these two models.

Compare with Other Models