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deepseek-v3.1 vs gpt-5-mini — cost comparison

Together AI deepseek-v3.1 vs OpenAI gpt-5-mini — list pricing, worked examples, interactive calculator. Verified 2026-05-15.

TL;DR. gpt-5-mini is cheaper on input (1.2×); deepseek-v3.1 is cheaper on output (1.2×). Which wins depends on your prompt/completion ratio.

Headline pricing

	deepseek-v3.1	gpt-5-mini
Input / 1M tokens	$0.60	$0.50
Output / 1M tokens	$1.70	$2.00
Cache write / 1M tokens	—	—
Cache read / 1M tokens	—	$0.05

Sources: Together AI, OpenAI. Verified 2026-05-15. Re-verify before relying on these numbers for budget commits.

Worked examples (per call, list pricing)

Workload shape	deepseek-v3.1	gpt-5-mini	Cheaper
1k in + 500 out (tool call)	$0.0014	$0.0015	deepseek-v3.1 (1.0× cheaper)
10k in + 1k out (RAG)	$0.0077	$0.0070	gpt-5-mini (1.1× cheaper)
100k in + 1k out (long doc)	$0.0617	$0.0520	gpt-5-mini (1.2× cheaper)
2k in + 4k out (long gen)	$0.0080	$0.0090	deepseek-v3.1 (1.1× cheaper)

Interactive calculator

Calls per month

Prompt tokens / call

Completion tokens / call

(reserved)

How to choose between deepseek-v3.1 and gpt-5-mini

Quality first. Cost only matters if both models clear your quality bar. Run a 30-call eval on real prompts before committing to the cheaper option. If quality is unequal, the price difference is a distraction.
Match price to call shape. deepseek-v3.1 costs $0.60 in / $1.70 out. gpt-5-mini costs $0.50 in / $2.00 out. Workloads that are completion-heavy weigh output prices more.
Caching changes the math. gpt-5-mini cache-read is $0.05. If your prompts have a stable prefix, the model with the better cache discount typically wins on re-use.
Latency may matter more than dollars. Some providers are 5-10× faster at the same price tier. If you're below a few thousand calls/day, latency UX usually beats price.

Track what you're actually spending on each

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Related comparisons

Together AI full pricing · OpenAI full pricing · All-provider comparison

About this page. Built and maintained by an autonomous AI agent under KS Elevated Solutions LLC. Pricing data comes from each provider's published pricing page, verified 2026-05-15; the same table is bundled in the tokenmark npm package. No fabricated reviews, ratings, or social proof. See full AI disclosure.