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Model comparison

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs Gemini 3.6 Flash

DeepSeek against Google, compared on context, price, and verified benchmark results.

Catalog record checked September 26, 2026Individual provider fields may changeEvidence confidence: High — see receipts below

DeepSeek

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash

Balanced · Open weights

vs

Google

Gemini 3.6 Flash

Balanced

AI model capability comparison
SpecificationDeepSeek V4.1 FlashGemini 3.6 Flash
ProviderDeepSeekGoogle
TierBalancedBalanced
Context window1MWinner: 1.05M
Max outputWinner: 384K66K
Input / 1M tokensWinner: $0.30$0.75
Output / 1M tokensWinner: $1.20$3.75
WeightsOpenClosed
Parameters552B MoE (causal encoder-decoder; 8B active for input, 16B for output)Not disclosedUnverified
Reasoning levelslow, high, maxlow, medium, high
Modalitiestext, imagetext, image, video, audio, pdf
LicenseMITNot disclosedUnverified
API model iddeepseek-flashgemini-3.6-flash
ReleasedSeptember 10, 2026July 21, 2026
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index [max] (2026-09-26)39.5Not verifiedUnverified
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index [high] (2026-09-26)Not verifiedUnverified34
DeepSWE 1.1 [max] (2026-09-10)74.2Not verifiedUnverified
DeepSWE 1.1 (2026-07)Not verifiedUnverified48.6
Terminal-Bench 2.1 [max] (2026-09-10)90.6Not verifiedUnverified
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (2026-07)Not verifiedUnverified78
GPQA Diamond [max] (2026-09-10)90.9Not verifiedUnverified
Humanity's Last Exam (2026-08)Not verifiedUnverified51.2

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

Where each score comes from, and how far it can be compared across models.

Pricing tiers

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash: Official peak rates $0.30/$1.20 per MTok; off-peak $0.15/$0.60 (50% of peak). Cache hit $0.006 peak / $0.003 off-peak. Peak hours are weekdays 01:00–04:00 and 06:00–10:00 UTC. Open weights (MIT). The legacy deepseek-v4-flash and deepseek-v4-flash-vision-exp ids temporarily route here.

Gemini 3.6 Flash: $0.75/$3.75 per MTok (intro through 2026-12-31, then $1.50/$7.50). Multimodal input.

BalancedOpen weightsRecord checked September 26, 2026

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is DeepSeek's new default — an open-weight (MIT) multimodal MoE that DeepSeek says beats V4-Pro on performance, cost and speed.

Best for

  • Open-weight price-performance
  • High-volume hosted agents
  • Self-hosting with MIT weights

Watch out

Vendor benchmark claims are far ahead of its independent Artificial Analysis score (39.5 on v4.3.2); peak/off-peak billing means the hour you run matters.

BalancedRecord checked September 26, 2026

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 V4.1 Flash is cheaper on output at $1.20 per million tokens against $3.75 for Gemini 3.6 Flash — about 3.1×. 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.

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Evidence 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.
  • 3 shared named benchmarks with differing scores — Measured on: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, DeepSWE 1.1, Terminal-Bench 2.1.
  • Verified within the last 90 days — Newest catalog check was 2 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.

Related comparisons

Diving deeper on one model? DeepSeek V4.1 Flash · Gemini 3.6 Flash

Common questions

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs Gemini 3.6 Flash

Answered from the verified figures on this page rather than general guidance.

Is DeepSeek V4.1 Flash or Gemini 3.6 Flash cheaper for input?
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is cheaper at $0.30 per million input tokens, against $0.75 for Gemini 3.6 Flash — roughly 2.5× 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 V4.1 Flash has tiered pricing: Official peak rates $0.30/$1.20 per MTok; off-peak $0.15/$0.60 (50% of peak). Cache hit $0.006 peak / $0.003 off-peak. Peak hours are weekdays 01:00–04:00 and 06:00–10:00 UTC. Open weights (MIT). The legacy deepseek-v4-flash and deepseek-v4-flash-vision-exp ids temporarily route here. 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 V4.1 Flash or Gemini 3.6 Flash cheaper for output?
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is cheaper at $1.20 per million output tokens, against $3.75 for Gemini 3.6 Flash — roughly 3.1× 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 V4.1 Flash has tiered pricing: Official peak rates $0.30/$1.20 per MTok; off-peak $0.15/$0.60 (50% of peak). Cache hit $0.006 peak / $0.003 off-peak. Peak hours are weekdays 01:00–04:00 and 06:00–10:00 UTC. Open weights (MIT). The legacy deepseek-v4-flash and deepseek-v4-flash-vision-exp ids temporarily route here. 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 V4.1 Flash or Gemini 3.6 Flash?
Gemini 3.6 Flash accepts 1.05M tokens against 1M for DeepSeek V4.1 Flash. This only matters if you routinely send very long documents or large codebases.
Do DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and Gemini 3.6 Flash support the same reasoning levels?
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash exposes low, high, max, while Gemini 3.6 Flash exposes low, medium, high.
Should I use DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 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 V4.1 Flash suits open-weight price-performance; Gemini 3.6 Flash suits multimodal pipelines.
Can I self-host DeepSeek V4.1 Flash or Gemini 3.6 Flash?
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 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 V4.1 Flash costs $0.30 per 1M tokens versus $0.75 for Gemini 3.6 Flash — a 2.5x difference at the headline tier.
  • Context: Gemini 3.6 Flash takes 1.05M against 1M for DeepSeek V4.1 Flash — only decisive if your prompts approach the smaller window.
  • Measured capability: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash leads Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index 39.5 to 34 (measured 2026-09-26).
  • Deployment: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash publishes weights you can self-host; the other is API-only.
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