Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhigh) vs DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhigh) 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.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhigh) scores 23.0 points higher (34.4 vs 11.4) but costs 7.1× as much to run the benchmark ($3255 vs $461; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhigh) when you need intelligence above 11.4, and DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) when 11.4 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhigh) | DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 34.4 | 11.4 | −66.9% DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) is 66.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $3,255.40 | $460.74 | −85.8% DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) is 85.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 26.92s | 19.94s | −25.9% DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) is 25.9% faster |
| 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 (Xhigh): 66.9% less intelligence, 85.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 25.9% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
- 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 (Xhigh)DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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