Model comparison
Claude Sonnet 5 vs DeepSeek V4-Pro
Anthropic against DeepSeek, compared on context, price, and verified benchmark results.
Catalog record checked August 14, 2026; individual provider fields may change.
Anthropic
Claude Sonnet 5
Balanced
DeepSeek
DeepSeek V4-Pro
Balanced · Open weights
| Specification | Claude Sonnet 5 | DeepSeek V4-Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | DeepSeek |
| Tier | Balanced | Balanced |
| Context window | 1M | 1M |
| Max output | 128K | Winner: 384K |
| Input / 1M tokens | $2 | Winner: $0.435 |
| Output / 1M tokens | $10 | Winner: $0.87 |
| Weights | Closed | Open |
| Parameters | Not disclosed | 1.6T total / 49B active (MoE) |
| Reasoning levels | low, medium, high, xhigh, max | low, high, max |
| Modalities | text, image | text |
| Released | June 30, 2026 | April 24, 2026 |
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index [max] (2026-08-08) | Winner: 55 | 53 |
Prices are USD per million tokens at standard rates, excluding batch and caching discounts. Bold indicates the better figure where one is objectively better. Values we could not confirm from the provider are shown as “Not verified” rather than estimated.
Pricing tiers: Claude Sonnet 5: List price is $2/$10 per million input/output tokens. Anthropic made the launch intro rate the standard price; the previously scheduled 2026-09-01 step to $3/$15 will not occur. · DeepSeek V4-Pro: API id `deepseek-v4-pro` is unchanged across the 2026-04-24 preview and the 2026-08-13 GA checkpoint. Current list is $0.435/$0.87 per million tokens (cache miss / output) until 2026-08-16 16:00 UTC. From then, official peak/off-peak rates: off-peak $0.66/$1.98, peak $1.32/$3.96 (cache miss / output). Peak hours are 01:00–04:00 and 06:00–10:00 UTC.
Claude Sonnet 5
Anthropic's mid tier on paper, though its DeepSWE cost per completed task is the highest recorded here.
Best for
- Everyday generation
- Short, well-scoped tasks
Watch out
Cheaper per token than Opus 5 but $26.40 per DeepSWE task against Opus 5's $11.84 — it used 214K output tokens over 268 steps.
DeepSeek V4-Pro
DeepSeek's larger V4 sibling for harder reasoning and coding, still priced well below closed mid tiers.
Best for
- Harder reasoning on a budget
- Open-weight deployments
- Agentic coding when Flash is not enough
Watch out
The April preview and 2026-08-13 GA share one API id — pin the date of any score you cite. Artificial Analysis currently evaluates the 0813 (max) checkpoint at Intelligence Index 53, Terminal-Bench v2.1 78.7%, and GPQA Diamond 92.8%. Peak/off-peak API rates take effect 2026-08-16 16:00 UTC.
Benchmark
DeepSWE 1.1 in context
Both models shown against the wider field, with cost per completed task alongside the score.
Local leader
Claude Opus 5 [max]
74%
Rows shown
24
Highest published reasoning effort per model (not best Pass@1)
Snapshot date
2026-08-13
Mirrored from deepswe.datacurve.ai
Better is toward the top-right (higher pass rate, lower cost). X-axis is reversed to match DeepSWE’s public chart. v1.1 uses average cost / tokens / steps; v1 uses published medians.
| # | Model | Pass@1 | Cost / task | Tokens / task | Steps / task |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Claude Opus 5 [max] | 74% | $11.84 | 118k | 99 |
| 2 | GPT-5.6 Sol [max] | 73% | $8.39 | 60k | 61 |
| 3 | Claude Fable 5 [max] | 70% | $21.63 | 119k | 88 |
| 4 | GPT-5.6 Terra [max] | 70% | $4.95 | 72k | 76 |
| 5 | Kimi K3 [max] | 69% | $4.65 | 82k | 98 |
| 6 | GPT-5.6 Luna [max] | 67% | $3.03 | 73k | 102 |
| 7 | GPT-5.5 [xhigh] | 67% | $7.23 | 46k | 82 |
| 8 | Grok 4.6 [xhigh] | 67% | $5.50 | 71k | 87 |
| 9 | Gemini 3.7 Flash [high] | 65% | $2.18 | 107k | 125 |
| 10 | DeepSeek V4-Pro [max] | 63% | $0.24 | 106k | 155 |
| 11 | Claude Opus 4.8 [max] | 59% | $13.22 | 135k | 120 |
| 12 | Qwen3.8-Max [xhigh] | 58% | $3.73 | 95k | 111 |
| 13 | Muse Spark 1.2 [xhigh] | 55% | $3.70 | 99k | 101 |
| 14 | Claude Sonnet 5 [max] | 54% | $26.40 | 214k | 268 |
| 15 | Grok 4.5 [high] | 54% | $2.42 | 36k | 61 |
| 16 | DeepSeek V4-Flash [max] | 53% | $0.10 | 108k | 153 |
| 17 | Muse Spark 1.1 [xhigh] | 53% | $2.36 | 74k | 96 |
| 18 | GPT-5.4 [xhigh] | 52% | $5.65 | 71k | 70 |
| 19 | Gemini 3.6 Flash [high] | 47% | $4.42 | 96k | 117 |
| 20 | GLM 5.2 [max] | 44% | $3.92 | 78k | 129 |
| 21 | Gemini 3.5 Flash [high] | 36% | $3.45 | 76k | 105 |
| 22 | Kimi K2.7 Code | 31% | $2.82 | 59k | 149 |
| 23 | Claude Sonnet 4.6 [high] | 30% | $5.52 | 76k | 134 |
| 24 | Gemini 3.1 Pro [high] | 12% | $2.14 | 28k | 76 |
DeepSWE “Best” picks the highest published reasoning effort per model (not the highest pass rate). Small gaps may not be statistically meaningful — confirm on deepswe.datacurve.ai.
Common questions
Claude Sonnet 5 vs DeepSeek V4-Pro
Answered from the verified figures on this page rather than general guidance.
Is Claude Sonnet 5 or DeepSeek V4-Pro cheaper for input?
DeepSeek V4-Pro is cheaper at $0.435 per million input tokens, against $2 for Claude Sonnet 5 — roughly 4.6× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; Claude Sonnet 5 has tiered pricing: List price is $2/$10 per million input/output tokens. Anthropic made the launch intro rate the standard price; the previously scheduled 2026-09-01 step to $3/$15 will not occur. DeepSeek V4-Pro has tiered pricing: API id `deepseek-v4-pro` is unchanged across the 2026-04-24 preview and the 2026-08-13 GA checkpoint. Current list is $0.435/$0.87 per million tokens (cache miss / output) until 2026-08-16 16:00 UTC. From then, official peak/off-peak rates: off-peak $0.66/$1.98, peak $1.32/$3.96 (cache miss / output). Peak hours are 01:00–04:00 and 06:00–10:00 UTC.
Is Claude Sonnet 5 or DeepSeek V4-Pro cheaper for output?
DeepSeek V4-Pro is cheaper at $0.87 per million output tokens, against $10 for Claude Sonnet 5 — roughly 11× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; Claude Sonnet 5 has tiered pricing: List price is $2/$10 per million input/output tokens. Anthropic made the launch intro rate the standard price; the previously scheduled 2026-09-01 step to $3/$15 will not occur. DeepSeek V4-Pro has tiered pricing: API id `deepseek-v4-pro` is unchanged across the 2026-04-24 preview and the 2026-08-13 GA checkpoint. Current list is $0.435/$0.87 per million tokens (cache miss / output) until 2026-08-16 16:00 UTC. From then, official peak/off-peak rates: off-peak $0.66/$1.98, peak $1.32/$3.96 (cache miss / output). Peak hours are 01:00–04:00 and 06:00–10:00 UTC.
Which has the larger context window, Claude Sonnet 5 or DeepSeek V4-Pro?
Both accept about 1M tokens of context, so document length will not decide between them.
Do Claude Sonnet 5 and DeepSeek V4-Pro support the same reasoning levels?
Claude Sonnet 5 exposes low, medium, high, xhigh, max, while DeepSeek V4-Pro exposes low, high, max.
Should I use Claude Sonnet 5 or DeepSeek V4-Pro?
Both sit in the balanced tier, so the choice usually comes down to price and context rather than capability. Claude Sonnet 5 suits everyday generation; DeepSeek V4-Pro suits harder reasoning on a budget.
Can I self-host Claude Sonnet 5 or DeepSeek V4-Pro?
DeepSeek V4-Pro publishes open weights, but self-hosting and third-party provider access depend on the licence, hardware, serving support, and availability. Claude Sonnet 5 is a closed model whose supported access paths are controlled by its provider.
Next step
Choosing between them
Tier and workload decide this more reliably than a leaderboard position does.
If both sit in the same tier, the decision usually comes down to context window and output price rather than headline capability — output tokens dominate real bills.
If one is a step up within the same provider, the useful question is whether your hardest task actually fails on the cheaper tier. Most production volume — classification, extraction, summarization — does not.
Choosing a harness rather than a model — Cursor, Copilot, Claude Code, Muse Code, or Lovable? Compare agentic harnesses · Latest releases.