DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max) vs GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026)
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max) 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 1.8 points higher (26.0 vs 24.2) but costs 6.2× as much to run the benchmark ($987 vs $159; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026) when you need intelligence above 24.2, and DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max) when 24.2 is enough.
| Metric | DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max) | GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 24.2 | 26.0 | +7.4% GPT-5.5 Instant (June… is 7.4% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $159.30 | $986.85 | +519.5% GPT-5.5 Instant (June… is 6.2× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 99.17s | 16.20s | −83.7% GPT-5.5 Instant (June… is 83.7% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.11 / $0.23 | $5.00 / $30.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026) vs DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max): 7.4% more intelligence, 519.5% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 83.7% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh) scores 41.20 for $158.
- 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 V4 Flash 0420 (Max)GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026)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-v4-flash-0420/gpt-5-5-instant-06-26 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-v4-flash-0420/gpt-5-5-instant-06-26?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill