DeepSeek R1 vs GPT 5.1
DeepSeek R1 vs GPT 5.1: DeepSeek R1 is cheaper by 46% on average. DeepSeek R1 from Azure AI Foundry (128,000-token context, reasoning) vs. GPT 5.1 from Azure OpenAI (272,000-token context, reasoning, tool calls). Use Agent Command Center to A/B both in shadow mode and pick the winner per workload.
Side-by-side cost
Live workload comparison
Same workload run through both models. The cheaper one is highlighted.
3,000
0272,000
400
0128,000
5,000
01,000,000
At this workload, DeepSeek R1 is 20% cheaper than GPT 5.1 — a savings of $234/month ($2,812/year).
Crossover: GPT 5.1 is cheaper when output/input ≤ 0.02 (input-heavy workloads — RAG, retrieval). DeepSeek R1 wins above (long-form generation).
Current workload ratio: 0.13 (400/3000)
Production recipe — Agent Command Center
strategy: cost-optimized
primary:
model: deepseek-r1
provider: azure-ai-foundry
fallback:
model: gpt-5-1
provider: azure-openai
shadow: { sample_rate: 0.05 } # mirror 5% of traffic to compare quality live| DeepSeek R1 | GPT 5.1 | |
|---|---|---|
| Input price | $1.35/M | $1.25/M |
| Output price | $5.40/M | $10.00/M |
| Context window | 128,000 | 272,000 |
| Max output | 8,192 | 128,000 |
| Function calling | — | ✓ |
| Vision | — | ✓ |
| Audio input | — | — |
| Reasoning | ✓ | ✓ |
| Prompt caching | — | ✓ |
| Structured output | — | ✓ |
| Pricing verified | May 12, 2026 | May 12, 2026 |
Benchmark comparison
Side-by-side public benchmark scores. Greener bar = winner.
Chatbot Arena ELOgeneral
DeepSeek R1
1,361
GPT 5.1
1,455
GPQA Diamondreasoning⚠ different settings
DeepSeek R1
71.5%
GPT 5.1
88.1%
SWE-bench Verifiedagent⚠ different settings
DeepSeek R1
49.2%
GPT 5.1
76.3%