DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) vs GPT-5.5 (High)
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) by DeepSeek or GPT-5.5 (High) by OpenAI? 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
GPT-5.5 (High) scores 25.6 points higher (37.0 vs 11.4) but costs 7.4× as much to run the benchmark ($3411 vs $461; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GPT-5.5 (High) when you need intelligence above 11.4, and DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) when 11.4 is enough.
| Metric | DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) | GPT-5.5 (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 11.4 | 37.0 | +224.6% GPT-5.5 (High) is 3.2× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $460.74 | $3,410.76 | +640.3% GPT-5.5 (High) is 7.4× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 19.94s | 20.75s | +4.1% GPT-5.5 (High) is 4.1% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $4.00 | $5.00 / $30.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
GPT-5.5 (High) vs DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25): 224.6% more intelligence, 640.3% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 4.1% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
- GPT-5.5 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25)GPT-5.5 (High)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-r1-0120/gpt-5-5-high · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-r1-0120/gpt-5-5-high?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill