DeepSeek R2
DeepSeek · released 2026-02-15
Quality (AA Index)86
Input price$0.55
Output price$2.20
Context128K
Throughput110 tok/s
P50 latency1.2s
DeepSeek R2 vs Grok 3
Side-by-side pricing, capabilities, real-world cost across common scenarios, and our editorial pick.
Add a modelUp to 4 models can be compared
all prices in USD per 1M tokens
Grok 3
xAI · released 2026-02-20
Quality (AA Index)85
Input price$2.50
Output price$12.00
Context128K
Throughput95 tok/s
P50 latency1.4s
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Head-to-head specs
Green column = winner per metric| Metric | DeepSeek R2 | Grok 3 | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
Input price /1M tokens | $0.55 | $2.50 | DeepSeek R2 −78% |
Output price /1M tokens | $2.20 | $12.00 | DeepSeek R2 −82% |
Context window max input length | 128K | 128K | Tied |
AA Quality AA Intelligence Index (0–100) | 86 | 85 | DeepSeek R2 +1pt |
Arena Elo LMArena human-pref Elo (800–2000) | — | — | Tied |
Throughput tokens per second | 110 | 95 | DeepSeek R2 +16% |
P50 latency first token | 1.2s | 1.4s | DeepSeek R2 −14% |
Vision multimodal | — | ||
Function calling tool use | Tied | ||
Reasoning mode chain-of-thought | Tied |
Monthly cost across common scenarios
Default usage assumptions| Scenario | DeepSeek R2 | Grok 3 |
|---|---|---|
customer support 1000K req · 600/180 tok | $726 | $3.7K |
chat with docs 300K req · 4000/300 tok | $858 | $4.1K |
code generation 500K req · 2000/500 tok | $1.1K | $5.5K |
voice assistant 600K req · 800/200 tok | $528 | $2.6K |
Our pick
For most workloads, choose DeepSeek R2.
- 78% cheaper input price, which compounds at scale
- 16% faster throughput — matters for streaming UX and voice agents
Choose Grok 3 instead if: Tradeoffs for this pair have not yet been documented. The quality difference may be small enough that workload fit, integration cost, and team familiarity decide the choice.
Why pick? Use both with smart routing
Phase 2 · gateway with fallback chainSet DeepSeek R2 as primary, Grok 3 as fallback. One key, one bill, automatic failover when DeepSeek R2 errors.
PHASE 2 PREVIEW · gateway not live yetThis endpoint does not exist yet. The gateway is in Phase 2 — what you see below is a design preview of the planned interface, not a live API. We will email subscribers when it launches.
Preview the planned API call
$ curl https://api.aipricly.com/v1/chat/completions \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $AIPC_KEY" \
-d '{
"routing": {
"primary": "deepseek/deepseek-r2",
"fallback": ["xai/grok-3"]
},
"messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "..."}]
}'