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AI Choice Engine

Model comparison

DeepSeek V4 Pro vs GPT-5.6 Sol

DeepSeek against OpenAI, compared on context, price, and attributed benchmark results.

Recorded profile verification October 1, 2026Individual provider fields may changeEvidence confidence: Medium — see receipts below

DeepSeek

DeepSeek V4 Pro

Frontier · Open weights

vs

OpenAI

GPT-5.6 Sol

Frontier

AI model capability comparison
SpecificationDeepSeek V4 ProGPT-5.6 Sol
ProviderDeepSeekOpenAI
TierFrontierFrontier
Context window1MWinner: 1.05M
Max outputWinner: 384K128K
Input / 1M tokensWinner: $1.32$4
Output / 1M tokensWinner: $3.96$20
WeightsOpenClosed
Parameters1.6T total / 49B active (MoE)Not verifiedUnverified
Reasoning levelslow, high, maxnone, low, medium, high, xhigh, max
Modalitiestexttext, image
LicenseMITNot verifiedUnverified
API model iddeepseek-v4-progpt-5.6-sol
ReleasedApril 24, 2026July 9, 2026
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index [max] · source date DeepSeek V4 Pro: 2026-10-0136Not verifiedUnverified
SWE-bench Verified [max] · source date DeepSeek V4 Pro: 2026-04-2480.6Not verifiedUnverified
GPQA Diamond [max] · source date DeepSeek V4 Pro: 2026-04-2490.1Not verifiedUnverified
GPQA Diamond · source date GPT-5.6 Sol: 2026-07-09Not verifiedUnverified94.6
Humanity's Last Exam [max] · source date DeepSeek V4 Pro: 2026-04-2448.2Not verifiedUnverified
Humanity's Last Exam · source date DeepSeek V4 Pro: 2026-08-1342.7Not verifiedUnverified
Humanity's Last Exam · source date DeepSeek V4 Pro: 2026-08-1360Not verifiedUnverified
MMLU-Pro [max] · source date DeepSeek V4 Pro: 2026-04-2487.5Not verifiedUnverified
Terminal-Bench 2.1 · source date DeepSeek V4 Pro: 2026-08-1387.9Not verifiedUnverified
Terminal-Bench 2.1 · source date GPT-5.6 Sol: 2026-07-09Not verifiedUnverified88.8
DeepSWE 1.1 · source date DeepSeek V4 Pro: 2026-08-1362.7Not verifiedUnverified

Dates beside benchmark scores refer to the linked source’s publication or capture date unless that source explicitly states when it measured the result. A shared URL alone does not establish comparable runs; unverified setups are marked. Prices are USD per million tokens at standard rates, excluding batch and caching discounts. 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 Pro: Official peak rates $1.32/$3.96 per MTok; off-peak $0.66/$1.98 (cache-miss). Cache hit $0.044 peak / $0.022 off-peak. Peak hours are weekdays 01:00–04:00 and 06:00–10:00 UTC, excluding Chinese public holidays; weekends, holidays and all other hours are off-peak. Open weights (MIT). 1.6T/49B active MoE.

GPT-5.6 Sol: Launch $5/$30, reduced to promotional $4/$20 on August 21; available at least through November 21, 2026. Above 272K input the full request bills $8/$30. Cached input $0.40/$0.80 short/long and cache writes $5/$10. Batch is $2/$10 at short context. Regional/FedRAMP processing adds 10% where eligible. Knowledge cutoff Feb 16 2026.

FrontierOpen weightsRecord checked October 1, 2026

DeepSeek V4 Pro

DeepSeek V4 Pro is DeepSeek's large open-weight (MIT) MoE with a 1M-token context — DeepSeek says the cheaper V4.1-Flash now beats it.

Best for

  • Cost-sensitive hosted agents
  • Open-weight deployments
  • High-volume coding

Watch out

The current tariff identifies DeepSeek-V4-Pro-0813. DeepSeek's current changelog reverses the earlier September 14 re-route plan and says it will continue serving V4 Pro at unchanged rates until further notice. Original April benchmark/checkpoint results are not the current 0813 evaluation. Self-hosting memory depends on quantization, offloading and hardware.

FrontierRecord checked October 1, 2026

GPT-5.6 Sol

GPT-5.6 Sol was OpenAI's GPT-5.6 flagship for complex reasoning and coding with a 1.05M-token context — superseded on 2026-09-22 by GPT-6 Sol at half the price.

Best for

  • Complex reasoning
  • Agentic coding
  • Hard knowledge work

Watch out

GPT-6.1 Sol is the newer Sol option at $2/$10 Standard. GPT-5.6 Sol remains listed; its $4/$20 price is promotional. Max effort can increase token use, and Ultra is a multi-agent configuration rather than a separate reasoning.effort value.

When the cheaper one wins

DeepSeek V4 Pro is cheaper on output at $3.96 per million tokens against $20 for GPT-5.6 Sol — about 5.1×. 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. On DeepSWE 1.1, DeepSeek V4 Pro is 62.8% Pass@1 at $0.24/task versus GPT-5.6 Sol at 72.7% / $8.39/task. This compares standard short-context token rates, not total cost per accepted task. Include input, cache, context tiers, schedules, retries and review in your pilot.

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Evidence confidence: Medium

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.
  • No directly aligned benchmark setup — No benchmark has matching cited sources, source dates, units, effort and recorded run details on both models.
  • Verified within the last 90 days — Older of the two catalog checks was 25 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 Pro · GPT-5.6 Sol

Common questions

DeepSeek V4 Pro vs GPT-5.6 Sol

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

Is DeepSeek V4 Pro or GPT-5.6 Sol cheaper for input?
DeepSeek V4 Pro is cheaper at $1.32 per million input tokens, against $4 for GPT-5.6 Sol — roughly 3.0× the price. Estimate both input and output token volume for your workload. These are base rates; DeepSeek V4 Pro: Official peak rates $1.32/$3.96 per MTok; off-peak $0.66/$1.98 (cache-miss). Cache hit $0.044 peak / $0.022 off-peak. Peak hours are weekdays 01:00–04:00 and 06:00–10:00 UTC, excluding Chinese public holidays; weekends, holidays and all other hours are off-peak. Open weights (MIT). 1.6T/49B active MoE. GPT-5.6 Sol: Launch $5/$30, reduced to promotional $4/$20 on August 21; available at least through November 21, 2026. Above 272K input the full request bills $8/$30. Cached input $0.40/$0.80 short/long and cache writes $5/$10. Batch is $2/$10 at short context. Regional/FedRAMP processing adds 10% where eligible. Knowledge cutoff Feb 16 2026.
Is DeepSeek V4 Pro or GPT-5.6 Sol cheaper for output?
DeepSeek V4 Pro is cheaper at $3.96 per million output tokens, against $20 for GPT-5.6 Sol — roughly 5.1× the price. Estimate both input and output token volume for your workload. These are base rates; DeepSeek V4 Pro: Official peak rates $1.32/$3.96 per MTok; off-peak $0.66/$1.98 (cache-miss). Cache hit $0.044 peak / $0.022 off-peak. Peak hours are weekdays 01:00–04:00 and 06:00–10:00 UTC, excluding Chinese public holidays; weekends, holidays and all other hours are off-peak. Open weights (MIT). 1.6T/49B active MoE. GPT-5.6 Sol: Launch $5/$30, reduced to promotional $4/$20 on August 21; available at least through November 21, 2026. Above 272K input the full request bills $8/$30. Cached input $0.40/$0.80 short/long and cache writes $5/$10. Batch is $2/$10 at short context. Regional/FedRAMP processing adds 10% where eligible. Knowledge cutoff Feb 16 2026.
Which has the larger context window, DeepSeek V4 Pro or GPT-5.6 Sol?
GPT-5.6 Sol accepts 1.05M tokens against 1M for DeepSeek V4 Pro. This only matters if you routinely send very long documents or large codebases.
Do DeepSeek V4 Pro and GPT-5.6 Sol support the same reasoning levels?
DeepSeek V4 Pro exposes low, high, max, while GPT-5.6 Sol exposes none, low, medium, high, xhigh, max.
Should I use DeepSeek V4 Pro or GPT-5.6 Sol?
Both are classified in our frontier tier; this editorial grouping does not imply equal capability. DeepSeek V4 Pro is a candidate for cost-sensitive hosted agents; GPT-5.6 Sol is a candidate for complex reasoning. Compare accuracy, tool reliability, latency and cost on representative tasks.
Can I self-host DeepSeek V4 Pro or GPT-5.6 Sol?
DeepSeek V4 Pro publishes open weights, but self-hosting and third-party provider access depend on the licence, hardware, serving support, and availability. GPT-5.6 Sol 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 Pro costs $1.32 per 1M tokens versus $4 for GPT-5.6 Sol — a 3x difference at the headline tier.
  • Context: GPT-5.6 Sol takes 1.05M against 1M for DeepSeek V4 Pro — only decisive if your prompts approach the smaller window.
  • Deployment: DeepSeek V4 Pro publishes weights you can self-host; the other is API-only.
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