DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs GPT-5.6 Luna
Side-by-side comparison of API pricing, specs, benchmarks, and capabilities
| Specification |
by DeepSeek
|
by OpenAI
|
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Status | Current budget | Current mid tier |
| Released | ||
| Pricing per million tokens | ||
| Input | $0.300/Mtok | $0.200/Mtok |
| Output | $1.20/Mtok | $1.20/Mtok |
| Blended avg | $0.525/Mtok | $0.450/Mtok |
| Cached input | $0.006/Mtok | $0.020/Mtok |
| Price basis | DeepSeek bills this model at TWO rates depending on the hour. The tracked figure is the PEAK rate: $0.30 input (cache miss) / $0.006 input (cache hit) / $1.20 output per 1M tokens. Off-peak is exactly half: $0.15 / $0.003 / $0.60. Peak hours are 01:00-04:00 and 06:00-10:00 UTC, Monday through Friday; every other hour, and all of Saturday and Sunday, is off-peak. Peak is the headline here because DeepSeek defines off-peak as half of peak rather than the other way round, so peak is the list rate, and because a caller who does not schedule around the clock needs the published number to be a ceiling rather than a floor. Halve it for a workload that runs entirely outside those hours. Third-party catalogues that quote this model at $0.15/$0.60 per 1M are printing the OFF-PEAK tier, not a different rate card. | — |
| Specifications | ||
| Context window | 1M tokens | 1M tokens |
| Parameters | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Speed (TPS) | — | — |
| Modalities | ||
| Input |
textimage
|
textimage
|
| Benchmarks sources: public leaderboards / Vellum LLM Leaderboard | ||
| Avg benchmark score | — | 90.7 |
| Perf / dollar | — | 201.6 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 92.3 |
| SWE-Bench Verified | — | 93 |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | — | 84.3 |
| HumanEval | — | 93 |
| Independent composite scores each on its own scale — not part of the average above | ||
| AA Intelligence Index | — | 37.5 |
| AA Agentic Index | — | 42.7 |
| AA-Omniscience Index (−100–100) | — | -10.3 |
| GDPval-AA v2 | — | 1489.3 ELO |
| Providers | ||
| Available from |
DeepSeek — $0.300/$1.20/Mtok
|
OpenAI — $0.200/$1.20/Mtok
|
Cost at scale
1M tokens · 50/50 input/output| Volume | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash | GPT-5.6 Luna | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1M tokens | $0.52 | $0.45 | $0.07 (13.3%) |
| 10M tokens | $5.25 | $4.5 | $0.75 (14.3%) |
| 100M tokens | $52.5 | $45 | $7.5 (14.3%) |
| 1000M tokens | $525 | $450 | $75 (14.3%) |
When to pick which
distilled from the pricing and spec data above- your workload re-reads context (agents, RAG, long chats): cached input costs $0.006/Mtok — 98% off its list input price
- cost dominates: $0.450/Mtok blended vs $0.525 — 14.3% less on the same 50/50 token mix
Price movement
recorded changes since we began tracking each model · last checked| Model | Changes | Latest move | Old → new $/M |
|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek V4.1 Flash | 0 | — no move | Stable since we began tracking — no change recorded |
| GPT-5.6 Luna | 1 | price cut on | $1/$6 → $0.2/$1.2/Mtok |
The cheaper option here — GPT-5.6 Luna costs $0.450/Mtok blended on OpenAI.
Summary
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash by DeepSeek costs $0.300/Mtok input and $1.20/Mtok output, with a 1M-token context window. It supports text, image input.
GPT-5.6 Luna by OpenAI costs $0.200/Mtok input and $1.20/Mtok output, with a 1M-token context window. It supports text, image input.
On a blended cost basis, GPT-5.6 Luna is 14.3% cheaper than DeepSeek V4.1 Flash.It also has a larger context window.
The two aren't directly comparable on average benchmark score: GPT-5.6 Luna has published per-benchmark results, while DeepSeek V4.1 Flash does not yet.
Note: Pricing is per million tokens. Actual costs vary with usage patterns, prompt caching, and batch discounts. Always verify against official provider pricing pages.