DeepSeek-R1 Base vs Qwen3: which model should you choose?
We compared DeepSeek-R1 Base and Qwen3 on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Qwen3 has the stronger average benchmark score; Qwen3 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
DeepSeek-R1 Base
DeepSeek-R1 Base is a multimodal model from DeepSeek. It offers a 400,000-token context window, costs $5.05 per million input tokens and $26.24 per million output tokens, and averages 80.1 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $5.05 / 1M
- Output
- $26.24 / 1M
- Context
- 400,000
- Avg score
- 80.1
- Open weights
- Yes
Qwen3
Qwen3 is a multimodal model from Alibaba Cloud. It offers a 128,000-token context window, costs $5.04 per million input tokens and $22.52 per million output tokens, and averages 80.3 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $5.04 / 1M
- Output
- $22.52 / 1M
- Context
- 128,000
- Avg score
- 80.3
- Open weights
- Yes
Specification comparison
| Spec | DeepSeek-R1 Base | Qwen3 | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $5.05 | $5.04 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $26.24 | $22.52 | B |
| Context window | 400,000 | 128,000 | A |
| Max output | 65,536 | 8,192 | A |
| Average score | 80.1 | 80.3 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1442.9 | 1420.9 | A |
| Open weights | Yes | Yes | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
DeepSeek-R1 Base wins 5, Qwen3 wins 7, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1 Base | Qwen3 | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 81.0 | 81.2 | 0.2 | Qwen3 |
| GPQA Diamond | 76.2 | 77.7 | 1.5 | Qwen3 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 71.2 | 71.6 | 0.4 | Qwen3 |
| HumanEval | 83.4 | 87.0 | 3.6 | Qwen3 |
| MATH-500 | 84.9 | 86.5 | 1.6 | Qwen3 |
| AIME 2025 | 73.8 | 74.5 | 0.7 | Qwen3 |
| LiveCodeBench | 76.0 | 73.8 | 2.2 | DeepSeek-R1 Base |
| IFEval | 88.2 | 85.6 | 2.6 | DeepSeek-R1 Base |
| TruthfulQA | 82.2 | 80.4 | 1.8 | DeepSeek-R1 Base |
| HellaSwag | 90.0 | 88.1 | 1.9 | DeepSeek-R1 Base |
| MMMU | 74.2 | 76.7 | 2.5 | Qwen3 |
| Arena Elo | 1442.9 | 1420.9 | 22.0 | DeepSeek-R1 Base |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, DeepSeek-R1 Base costs about $10.35 per million tokens and Qwen3 costs about $9.41. Qwen3 is roughly 9% cheaper than DeepSeek-R1 Base. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
DeepSeek-R1 Base has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens, compared with 128,000 for Qwen3. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, DeepSeek-R1 Base wins 5, Qwen3 wins 7, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Qwen3 leads DeepSeek-R1 Base by 0.2 points (80.3 versus 80.1).
The price picture favours Qwen3. The context picture favours DeepSeek-R1 Base. Those two dimensions often matter more than a few benchmark points once a model is good enough for the task.
If you need a single default, start with Qwen3 for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.
Choose DeepSeek-R1 Base if
- You need the larger 400,000-token context window.
- You need the larger 65,536-token output limit.
Choose Qwen3 if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
FAQ
Is DeepSeek-R1 Base better than Qwen3?
On the index average, Qwen3 leads DeepSeek-R1 Base by 0.2 points (80.3 versus 80.1). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. DeepSeek-R1 Base wins 5 benchmarks, Qwen3 wins 7.
Which is cheaper, DeepSeek-R1 Base or Qwen3?
Qwen3 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $9.41 per million tokens, versus $10.35 for DeepSeek-R1 Base.
Which has the larger context window?
DeepSeek-R1 Base has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens. Qwen3 has 128,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
DeepSeek-R1 Base is open weights; Qwen3 is open weights.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Qwen3 for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.