Model comparison
DeepSeek R1 vs Gemini 3.6 Flash
DeepSeek against Google, compared on context, price, and verified benchmark results.
Catalog record checked September 5, 2026Individual provider fields may changeEvidence confidence: High — see receipts below
DeepSeek
DeepSeek R1
Balanced · Open weights
Gemini 3.6 Flash
Balanced
| Specification | DeepSeek R1 | Gemini 3.6 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | DeepSeek | |
| Tier | Balanced | Balanced |
| Context window | 128K | Winner: 1M |
| Max output | 33K | Winner: 64K |
| Input / 1M tokens | Winner: $0.55 | $0.75 |
| Output / 1M tokens | Winner: $2.19 | $3.75 |
| Weights | Open | Closed |
| Parameters | 671B total / 37B active (MoE) | Not disclosedUnverified |
| Reasoning levels | low, high, max | low, medium, high |
| Modalities | text | text, image, video, audio, pdf |
| License | MIT | Not disclosedUnverified |
| API model id | deepseek-reasoner | gemini-3.6-flash |
| Released | January 20, 2025 | July 21, 2026 |
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (2026-08-14) | 42 | Winner: 54 |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (2026-07) | Not verifiedUnverified | 78 |
| DeepSWE 1.1 (2026-07) | Not verifiedUnverified | 48.6 |
| Humanity's Last Exam (2026-08) | Not verifiedUnverified | 51.2 |
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.
Benchmark receipts
- 2026-08-14: Artificial AnalysisComposite index blending reasoning, knowledge, and coding evals into one 0–100 score. Comparability: directly comparable — AA occasionally rebaselines the index scale between snapshots — a score captured on one date is only comparable to same-snapshot scores (check measuredAt).
- 2026-08: Google DeepMind model evaluation report (vendor, HLE-Verified full set)Frontier-knowledge ceiling: extremely hard multi-domain questions written to be near-impossible without deep expertise. Comparability: comparable with caveat — Subset/tool configurations (text-only vs with-tools) differ between vendors and materially change scores; must match configuration to compare.
- 2026-07: Google DeepMind model evaluation report (vendor, quoting Datacurve leaderboard; 3.7 report shows 49 — rounding conflict preserved)Agentic terminal work: multi-step tasks executed in a sandboxed shell environment. Comparability: comparable with caveat — Scores across Terminal-Bench major versions (v1 vs v2) are NOT comparable; harness configuration (container, time limits) also shifts results.
Pricing tiers: DeepSeek R1: Launch pricing $0.55/$2.19 per MTok (cache hit $0.14). Third-party hosts list ~$0.70/$2.50. Verify which weights a host serves. · Gemini 3.6 Flash: $0.75/$3.75 per MTok (intro through 2026-12-31, then $1.50/$7.50). Multimodal input.
DeepSeek R1
DeepSeek R1 is the open-weight (MIT) reasoning model — o1-class quality, 128K context.
Best for
- Harder reasoning on a budget
- Open-weight deployments
- Agentic coding
Watch out
The deepseek-reasoner alias has been remapped to newer models on first-party API; pin the host/checkpoint you cite.
Gemini 3.6 Flash
Gemini 3.6 Flash is Google's balanced multimodal Flash tier with a 1M-token context.
Best for
- Multimodal pipelines
- High-volume processing
- Video and audio input
Watch out
Superseded by 3.7 Flash on quality; still a solid mid-tier.
When the cheaper one wins
DeepSeek R1 is cheaper on output at $2.19 per million tokens against $3.75 for Gemini 3.6 Flash — about 1.7×. Use the cheaper tier for classification, extraction, summarisation, and any task where the expensive model’s extra score does not change the accepted output. The expensive one only pays if your hardest task actually fails on the cheap tier. These are standard-tier API rates, excluding batch and cache discounts.
Run the model pickerEvidence confidence: High
How strong and complete the evidence behind this comparison is — not a prediction of which model is better.
- Pricing verified on both sides — Input and output rates are verified for both models.
- 4/5 core specs verified on both sides — Not published for at least one side: parameter count.
- 1 shared named benchmark with differing scores — Measured on: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index.
- Verified within the last 90 days — Newest catalog check was 6 days ago.
- Both models carry source citations — Each side has at least two catalog sources on record.
Source receipts
Each catalog figure was checked against the provider or an independent second source on the date shown.
- DeepSeek R1: AI/TLDR — DeepSeek R1 (accessed 2026-08-29)
- DeepSeek R1: PricePerToken — DeepSeek R1 (accessed 2026-08-29)
- Gemini 3.6 Flash: Google — Gemini 3.6 Flash (accessed 2026-08-29)
- Gemini 3.6 Flash: Google Cloud Gemini pricing (accessed 2026-08-29)
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Diving deeper on one model? DeepSeek R1 · Gemini 3.6 Flash
Common questions
DeepSeek R1 vs Gemini 3.6 Flash
Answered from the verified figures on this page rather than general guidance.
Is DeepSeek R1 or Gemini 3.6 Flash cheaper for input?
DeepSeek R1 is cheaper at $0.55 per million input tokens, against $0.75 for Gemini 3.6 Flash — roughly 1.4× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; DeepSeek R1 has tiered pricing: Launch pricing $0.55/$2.19 per MTok (cache hit $0.14). Third-party hosts list ~$0.70/$2.50. Verify which weights a host serves. Gemini 3.6 Flash has tiered pricing: $0.75/$3.75 per MTok (intro through 2026-12-31, then $1.50/$7.50). Multimodal input.
Is DeepSeek R1 or Gemini 3.6 Flash cheaper for output?
DeepSeek R1 is cheaper at $2.19 per million output tokens, against $3.75 for Gemini 3.6 Flash — roughly 1.7× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; DeepSeek R1 has tiered pricing: Launch pricing $0.55/$2.19 per MTok (cache hit $0.14). Third-party hosts list ~$0.70/$2.50. Verify which weights a host serves. Gemini 3.6 Flash has tiered pricing: $0.75/$3.75 per MTok (intro through 2026-12-31, then $1.50/$7.50). Multimodal input.
Which has the larger context window, DeepSeek R1 or Gemini 3.6 Flash?
Gemini 3.6 Flash accepts 1M tokens against 128K for DeepSeek R1. This only matters if you routinely send very long documents or large codebases.
Do DeepSeek R1 and Gemini 3.6 Flash support the same reasoning levels?
DeepSeek R1 exposes low, high, max, while Gemini 3.6 Flash exposes low, medium, high.
Should I use DeepSeek R1 or Gemini 3.6 Flash?
Both sit in the balanced tier, so the choice usually comes down to price and context rather than capability. DeepSeek R1 suits harder reasoning on a budget; Gemini 3.6 Flash suits multimodal pipelines.
Can I self-host DeepSeek R1 or Gemini 3.6 Flash?
DeepSeek R1 publishes open weights, but self-hosting and third-party provider access depend on the licence, hardware, serving support, and availability. Gemini 3.6 Flash is a closed model whose supported access paths are controlled by its provider.
Next step
Choosing between them
The verified figures that separate this pair, computed from the catalog rather than restated boilerplate.
- Input price: DeepSeek R1 costs $0.55 per 1M tokens versus $0.75 for Gemini 3.6 Flash — a 1.4x difference at the headline tier.
- Context: Gemini 3.6 Flash takes 1M against 128K for DeepSeek R1 — only decisive if your prompts approach the smaller window.
- Measured capability: Gemini 3.6 Flash leads Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index 54 to 42 (measured 2026-08-14).
- Deployment: DeepSeek R1 publishes weights you can self-host; the other is API-only.
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