Grok 3 vs DeepSeek-V3
xAI vs DeepSeek · Prices checked 12 August 2026
There is a 12.7× price gap here. DeepSeek-V3 blends to $0.519 per million tokens; Grok 3 to $6.60. A single 100K-input, 10K-output job costs $0.038 on DeepSeek-V3 against $0.450 on Grok 3.
The 6 benchmarks they both publish do not separate them; wins are shared. Grok 3 reads more in one request: 131,000 tokens of context against 64,000.
Pricing and capacity
| Metric | Grok 3 | DeepSeek-V3 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input / 1M tokens | $3.00 | $0.270 | 11.1× |
| Output / 1M tokens | $15.00 | $1.10 | 13.6× |
| Blended · 70/30calculated | $6.60 | $0.519 | 12.7× |
| Blended · 50/50calculated | $9.00 | $0.685 | 13.1× |
| Blended · 80/20calculated | $5.40 | $0.436 | 12.4× |
| Blended · 20/80calculated | $12.60 | $0.934 | 13.5× |
| Job cost · 100K + 10Kcalculated | $0.450 | $0.038 | 11.8× |
| Job cost · 1M + 100Kcalculated | $4.50 | $0.380 | 11.8× |
| Context window | 131,000 | 64,000 | 2.0× |
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
| Benchmark | Grok 3 | DeepSeek-V3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU | 86% | 88% | DeepSeek-V3 |
| GPQA Diamond | 75% | 59% | Grok 3 |
| MATH | 89% | 90% | DeepSeek-V3 |
| HumanEval | 86% | 89% | DeepSeek-V3 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 45% | 42% | Grok 3 |
| LMArena Elo | 1332 Elo | 1318 Elo | Grok 3 |
Only suites both models report are listed, so a missing score is never shown as a loss. Figures are provider-published or from public leaderboards and are not independently re-run.
What each model is for
Grok 3
xAI · Frontier
xAI's flagship Grok. Real-time access to the X firehose makes it strong on current events and live commentary.
- Real-time X data
- Less filtered tone
- Strong general reasoning
DeepSeek-V3
DeepSeek · Frontier
Open-weights frontier model that matched GPT-4-class quality at a fraction of the inference cost. Sparked the late-2024 cost reset.
- Frontier quality, open weights
- Aggressive pricing
- Strong code & math
- MoE architecture
Frequently asked questions
Which is cheaper, Grok 3 or DeepSeek-V3?
There is a 12.7× price gap here. DeepSeek-V3 blends to $0.519 per million tokens; Grok 3 to $6.60. A single 100K-input, 10K-output job costs $0.038 on DeepSeek-V3 against $0.450 on Grok 3. 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 performs better, Grok 3 or DeepSeek-V3?
The 6 benchmarks they both publish do not separate them; wins are shared. These are the figures each provider or public leaderboard publishes, not results we re-run, and a benchmark average can hide the specific behaviour your workload depends on.
Which has the larger context window, Grok 3 or DeepSeek-V3?
Grok 3 reads more in one request: 131,000 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 Grok 3 and DeepSeek-V3 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.