Claude Opus 5 (Max) vs DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Max) by Anthropic or DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) by DeepSeek? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (Max) scores 39.4 points higher (50.8 vs 11.4) but costs 16× as much to run the benchmark ($7275 vs $461; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Max) when you need intelligence above 11.4, and DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) when 11.4 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Max) | DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 50.8 | 11.4 | −77.6% DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) is 77.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $7,274.74 | $460.74 | −93.7% DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) is 93.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 63.34s | 20.16s | −68.2% DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) is 68.2% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $2.00 / $4.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) vs Claude Opus 5 (Max): 77.6% less intelligence, 93.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 68.2% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
Claude Opus 5 (Max)DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5/deepseek-r1-0120 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5/deepseek-r1-0120?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill