DeepSeek R1 vs OpenAI o4-mini: API Price & Benchmark Comparison (INR)
Side-by-side pricing
| DeepSeek R1 | OpenAI o4-mini | |
|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M tokens | ₹72.22 | ₹113.48 |
| Output price / 1M tokens | ₹257.92 | ₹453.93 |
| Context window | 163,840 | 200,000 |
| Provider | DeepSeek | OpenAI |
Velona effective INR prices, refreshed every 6 hours (last: 2026-07-28T17:32:59Z).
When to pick which
DeepSeek R1 is roughly 40% cheaper ($0.70/$2.50 vs $1.10/$4.40 per million) and exposes its full chain-of-thought, which is valuable for teaching apps, auditing, and distillation. o4-mini is generally the stronger reasoner on recent benchmarks and follows structured-output instructions more reliably, with tighter tool-use integration. R1's visible reasoning can also be verbose, inflating output-token bills on long problems. Pick R1 for budget reasoning, transparency, or open-weight deployment options. pick o4-mini when accuracy on hard STEM problems and clean JSON output are worth the premium.
Benchmarks
DeepSeek R1
Benchmarks
Independent scores from Artificial Analysis.
OpenAI o4-mini
Benchmarks
Independent scores from Artificial Analysis.
Cost calculator for both models
Frequently asked questions
Which is cheaper: DeepSeek R1 or OpenAI o4-mini?
On input tokens, DeepSeek R1 costs ₹72.22/1M and OpenAI o4-mini costs ₹113.48/1M through Velona. Output tokens: ₹257.92 vs ₹453.93 per 1M.
Can I switch between DeepSeek R1 and OpenAI o4-mini without changing code?
Yes. Both are behind Velona's single gateway API. Change the model id in your request body and everything else stays the same, including your INR wallet.
Are these prices current?
Prices are regenerated every 6 hours from live provider pricing and the current USD→INR rate, so the figures on this page track what you'd actually be billed.
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