DeepSeek R1: Features, Benchmarks & Pricing

DeepSeek R1 is an open-source reasoning model that arrived in January 2025 and immediately shook the AI industry. Built by Chinese AI lab DeepSeek, it matched OpenAI o1 on major benchmarks — at roughly 3–5% of the cost. For developers, researchers, and anyone curious about the state of AI reasoning, R1 is one of the most important models released in years.

This guide covers what DeepSeek R1 is, how it works, what makes it different from regular chat models, its benchmark performance, available versions, and how you can start using it today through platforms like Chat Smith.

DeepSeek R1 is a reasoning-focused large language model (LLM) developed by DeepSeek, an AI research company founded in China in 2023. Unlike standard chat models that generate responses instantly, R1 is designed to think through problems step by step before answering — a process called chain-of-thought reasoning.

The model has 671 billion parameters in total, but only 37 billion are active during any single inference pass, thanks to a Mixture of Experts (MoE) architecture. This makes it far more efficient than its total parameter count suggests. It was released on January 20, 2025, under the MIT License — meaning anyone can download, modify, and even commercialize it freely.

R1 was trained using reinforcement learning (RL) without relying heavily on supervised fine-tuning. Specifically, it uses a technique called Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO), which allows the model to develop its own reasoning strategies through trial and reward — rather than being taught explicit reasoning paths by human annotators.

R1's core strength is multi-step reasoning. Before producing an answer, it works through intermediate steps, checks its logic, and self-corrects where needed. This makes it especially powerful for tasks where a quick but wrong answer is worse than a slower correct one — think math proofs, debugging complex code, or analyzing a legal argument.

Unlike GPT-4o or Claude Sonnet, DeepSeek R1's weights are publicly available on Hugging Face. You can download and run the full model locally, fine-tune it for your use case, or build commercial products on top of it — all without paying licensing fees. This openness is a major reason R1 caused such a stir when it launched.

Alongside the full 671B model, DeepSeek released six smaller distilled versions — 1.5B, 7B, 8B, 14B, 32B, and 70B parameters — based on Qwen2.5 and Llama3 architectures. The 32B and 70B distilled models perform on par with OpenAI o1-mini, making high-quality reasoning accessible even on consumer hardware.

DeepSeek R1's benchmark results are what made the AI world take notice. It competes directly with OpenAI o1 — a closed, expensive model — across the hardest evaluation sets available. Here is how R1 stacks up on the most widely used benchmarks:

What stands out is the cost-efficiency. R1 achieves near-identical results to o1 on most tasks while being available via API at approximately $0.55 per million input tokens — compared to o1's significantly higher pricing. For teams running high-volume reasoning tasks, this difference is enormous.

DeepSeek has released several variants of R1 since launch. Understanding the differences helps you pick the right version for your needs.

• DeepSeek R1-Zero: The base version trained purely with reinforcement learning, no supervised fine-tuning at all. It demonstrates raw emergent reasoning but can be less consistent in output format.
• DeepSeek R1: The refined version that adds a small amount of cold-start supervised data before RL training. This results in better output formatting and more reliable responses while keeping the same reasoning depth.
• DeepSeek R1-0528: Released May 28, 2025. A significant checkpoint upgrade with stronger benchmark performance, fewer hallucinations, better front-end capabilities, and new support for JSON output and function calling.

R1 is not a general-purpose chatbot. It is a specialized reasoning model, and it shines brightest in structured, high-complexity tasks:

• Mathematics: Competition-level math, proofs, and quantitative problem-solving. Use an AI math solver powered by R1 for step-by-step calculations.
• Coding and debugging: R1 can analyze complex code, spot logical errors, suggest refactors, and explain algorithms in depth.
• Research and analysis: With a 128K context window (64K in some API versions), R1 can process long documents, research papers, or technical specifications and draw reasoned conclusions.
• Scientific problem-solving: Physics, chemistry, and biology questions requiring structured reasoning benefit from R1's chain-of-thought approach. Try pairing it with an AI physics solver for homework or research tasks.
• Summarizing complex documents: Feed R1 a dense PDF or report and get a structured, reasoned summary. An AI PDF summarizer can make this even faster.

How does R1 compare to the models you already know? Here is a practical breakdown:

For tasks that don't require deep reasoning — like writing emails, generating social content, or casual Q&A — a faster model like Claude Sonnet 4.6 or GPT-4o will serve you better. R1 is the right pick when accuracy on hard problems matters more than response speed.

There are several ways to use DeepSeek R1, depending on your technical setup and needs:

• DeepSeek chat platform: Visit chat.deepseek.com and toggle the "DeepThink" button to activate R1 reasoning mode. Free to use.
• DeepSeek API: Access via platform.deepseek.com using the model ID deepseek-reasoner. The API is OpenAI-compatible, making integration easy for developers already using GPT.
• Third-party providers: R1 is available through providers like Together AI, Fireworks, and Vercel — often cheaper than going directly to DeepSeek.
• Local deployment: Download model weights from Hugging Face and run locally using Ollama or LM Studio. The distilled 7B and 14B versions work on mid-range consumer GPUs.
• Chat Smith: Access DeepSeek models alongside GPT, Claude, and Gemini in one place — no separate accounts needed. You can also explore the full AI model library to compare models side by side.

Chat Smith gives you access to DeepSeek models — including reasoning-capable variants — alongside the world's other leading AI models. You can switch between DeepSeek V4 Pro, DeepSeek V4 Flash, and other top models within a single interface.

This matters for practical use. R1 is not always the right tool — for writing a blog post or brainstorming content, you want something faster. For solving a calculus problem or debugging a tricky algorithm, you want R1-level reasoning depth. Having both in one app means you can choose the right model for every task without switching platforms.

DeepSeek R1 is one of the most significant open-source AI releases to date. It delivers frontier-level reasoning at an open-source price, with distilled variants that make deployment accessible even without enterprise-grade hardware. Whether you are a researcher, developer, or curious user, R1 represents a genuine leap in what open AI can do.

Want to try it without setting up anything? Chat Smith lets you use DeepSeek models alongside GPT-5, Claude Sonnet, Gemini, and more — all in one free app. No API key required.