Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) vs DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) 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 Sonnet 5 (Medium) scores 16.7 points higher (28.1 vs 11.4) but costs 2.6× as much to run the benchmark ($1218 vs $461; premium vs mid-range cost classes). Pick Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25).
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) | DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 28.1 | 11.4 | −59.4% DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) is 59.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,218.17 | $460.74 | −62.2% DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) is 62.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 9.27s | 20.16s | +117.5% DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) is 117.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $2.00 / $4.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium): 59.4% less intelligence, 62.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 117.5% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) 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.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium)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-sonnet-5-medium/deepseek-r1-0120 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-medium/deepseek-r1-0120?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill