Grok 3 vs DeepSeek R1

Performance benchmarks + pricing comparison — updated April 2026

Grok 3

xAI

xAI's flagship model. Strong general-purpose capability with real-time knowledge access through X platform integration.

Input$3.00/M
Output$15.00/M
Context128K tokens
Best ForGeneral coding, research tasks, current-event-aware applications
Benchmark70/100

DeepSeek R1

DeepSeek

DeepSeek's reasoning model. Open-weight model that rivals o1 for complex reasoning tasks.

Input$0.140/M
Output$0.550/M
Context128K tokens
Best ForMath, coding, science reasoning at low cost

Cost Comparison by Scenario

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

ScenarioGrok 3DeepSeek R1Savings
Small Script (1K lines) $0.55 $0.02 DeepSeek R1 saves $0.53 (96%)
Medium Feature (10K lines) $4.05 $0.16 DeepSeek R1 saves $3.89 (96%)
Large Project (50K lines) $20.25 $0.80 DeepSeek R1 saves $19.45 (96%)
Code Review (5K lines) $0.90 $0.04 DeepSeek R1 saves $0.86 (96%)

Verdict

DeepSeek R1 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