DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) vs GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026)
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) by DeepSeek or GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026) by OpenAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-27.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026) scores 14.6 points higher (26.0 vs 11.4) but costs 2.1× as much to run the benchmark ($987 vs $461; premium vs mid-range cost classes). Pick GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25).
| Metric | DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) | GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 11.4 | 26.0 | +128.1% GPT-5.5 Instant (June… is 2.3× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $460.74 | $986.85 | +114.2% GPT-5.5 Instant (June… is 2.1× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 18.43s | 16.20s | −12.1% GPT-5.5 Instant (June… is 12.1% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $4.00 | $5.00 / $30.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026) vs DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25): 128.1% more intelligence, 114.2% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 12.1% faster 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 Instant (June 2026) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25)GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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