Gemini 3.6 Flash vs DeepSeek-R1
Google vs DeepSeek · Prices checked 12 August 2026
There is a 3.2× price gap here. DeepSeek-R1 blends to $1.04 per million tokens; Gemini 3.6 Flash to $3.30. A single 100K-input, 10K-output job costs $0.077 on DeepSeek-R1 against $0.225 on Gemini 3.6 Flash.
Gemini 3.6 Flash reads more in one request: 1,050,000 tokens of context against 64,000.
Pricing and capacity
| Metric | Gemini 3.6 Flash | DeepSeek-R1 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input / 1M tokens | $1.50 | $0.550 | 2.7× |
| Output / 1M tokens | $7.50 | $2.19 | 3.4× |
| Blended · 70/30calculated | $3.30 | $1.04 | 3.2× |
| Blended · 50/50calculated | $4.50 | $1.37 | 3.3× |
| Blended · 80/20calculated | $2.70 | $0.878 | 3.1× |
| Blended · 20/80calculated | $6.30 | $1.86 | 3.4× |
| Job cost · 100K + 10Kcalculated | $0.225 | $0.077 | 2.9× |
| Job cost · 1M + 100Kcalculated | $2.25 | $0.769 | 2.9× |
| Context window | 1,050,000 | 64,000 | 16.4× |
Input and output rates are as published by each provider. Blended and job-cost rows are calculated comparison metrics, not published prices — how they are derived.
Benchmarks
These two models do not currently report scores on any of the same benchmark suites, so there is no like-for-like capability comparison to show. Rather than pad the page with one-sided numbers, the benchmark leaderboards list every score we do hold.
What each model is for
Gemini 3.6 Flash
Google · Balanced
Google's current workhorse model, released July 2026 as the practical successor to 3.5 Flash rather than the long-delayed 3.5 Pro. It improves on coding, knowledge work and multimodal handling while reducing token usage by up to 17%, which makes it cheaper to run than its predecessor on the same task even before the headline rate is compared.
- Up to 17% fewer tokens per task than 3.5 Flash
- Coding and knowledge work
- Multimodal input including audio and video
- 1M-token context
DeepSeek-R1
DeepSeek · Reasoning
Open-weights reasoning model with chain-of-thought trained via RL. Comparable to o1 on math benchmarks at a fraction of the price.
- Open-weights reasoning
- Visible chain-of-thought
- Math & code
- Cheap
Frequently asked questions
Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.6 Flash or DeepSeek-R1?
There is a 3.2× price gap here. DeepSeek-R1 blends to $1.04 per million tokens; Gemini 3.6 Flash to $3.30. A single 100K-input, 10K-output job costs $0.077 on DeepSeek-R1 against $0.225 on Gemini 3.6 Flash. Blended cost weights input at 70% and output at 30%; price your own token split for an exact answer, since the cheaper model on a blended basis is not always cheaper for your workload.
Which has the larger context window, Gemini 3.6 Flash or DeepSeek-R1?
Gemini 3.6 Flash reads more in one request: 1,050,000 tokens of context against 64,000. The context window caps everything in a single request: prompt, retrieved documents, conversation history and the model’s own output all share it.
Can I compare Gemini 3.6 Flash and DeepSeek-R1 on my own numbers?
Yes. Open both in the side-by-side comparison tool to see every field at once, or use the token calculator to price your actual prompt and monthly request volume against each model. Both are free and need no sign-up.
Price it for your own workload
Related matchups
Terms used on this page
Prices and scores are recomputed on every deploy from the catalogue. Prices checked 12 August 2026.