DeepSeek V3 vs Grok 3
DeepSeek V3 vs Grok 3: DeepSeek V3 is cheaper by 70% on average. DeepSeek V3 from Azure AI Foundry (128,000-token context) vs. Grok 3 from xAI (131,072-token context, 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
0131,072
400
0131,072
5,000
01,000,000
At this workload, DeepSeek V3 is 65% cheaper than Grok 3 — a savings of $1,485/month ($17,817/year).
Production recipe — Agent Command Center
strategy: cost-optimized
primary:
model: deepseek-v3
provider: azure-ai-foundry
fallback:
model: grok-3
provider: xai
shadow: { sample_rate: 0.05 } # mirror 5% of traffic to compare quality live| DeepSeek V3 | Grok 3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Input price | $1.14/M | $3.00/M |
| Output price | $4.56/M | $15.00/M |
| Context window | 128,000 | 131,072 |
| Max output | 8,192 | 131,072 |
| 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.
MMLU-Proreasoning⚠ different settings
DeepSeek V3
75.9%
Grok 3
79.9%