Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) by DeepSeek? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallba… scores 39.8 points higher (51.2 vs 11.4) but costs 3.5× as much to run the benchmark ($1627 vs $461; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallba… when you need intelligence above 11.4, and DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) when 11.4 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) | DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 51.2 | 11.4 | −77.7% DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) is 77.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,626.81 | $460.74 | −71.7% DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) is 71.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 25.34s | 19.17s | −24.3% DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) is 24.3% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $2.00 / $4.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback): 77.7% less intelligence, 71.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 24.3% faster end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-medium/deepseek-r1-0120 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-medium/deepseek-r1-0120?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill