DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32B vs OpenAI: o4 Mini Deep Research
Head-to-head API pricing and cost comparison between DeepSeek’s DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32B and OpenAI’s OpenAI: o4 Mini Deep Research. Prices auto-refresh daily from OpenRouter.
DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32B is 86% cheaper for input tokens; DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32B also wins on output tokens.
Side-by-side comparison
| Spec | DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32B | OpenAI: o4 Mini Deep Research |
|---|---|---|
| Input price (per 1M) | $0.29 | $2.00 |
| Cached input (per 1M) | — | $0.50 |
| Output price (per 1M) | $0.29 | $8.00 |
| Batch input (per 1M) | — | $1.00 |
| Batch output (per 1M) | — | $4.00 |
| Reasoning price (per 1M) | — | — |
| Context window | 128K | 200K |
| Vision support | No | Yes |
| Caching support | No | Yes |
| Batch API | No | Yes |
| Reasoning capability | No | Yes |
Monthly cost at volume
Estimated monthly API spend at common production traffic levels (input/output tokens per request shown).
| Volume | DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32B | OpenAI: o4 Mini Deep Research | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
1K req/day 500in / 200out tokens | $6.09 | $78.00 | $71.91 DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32B wins |
10K req/day 1500in / 500out tokens | $174.00 | $2,100 | $1,926 DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32B wins |
100K req/day 3000in / 800out tokens | $3,306 | $37,200 | $33,894 DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32B wins |
1M req/day 8000in / 2000out tokens | $87,000 | $960,000 | $873,000 DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32B wins |
Adjust input/output token counts, request volume, batch & cached pricing.
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Frequently asked questions
Which is cheaper, DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32B or OpenAI: o4 Mini Deep Research?
For input tokens, DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32B is roughly 86% cheaper at $0.29/1M vs $2.00/1M. For output tokens, DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32B wins at $0.29/1M. Real-world cost depends on your input/output ratio — use the calculator to model your actual workload.
What’s the context window difference?
DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32B has a context window of 128K tokens. OpenAI: o4 Mini Deep Research offers 200K tokens. Larger context windows are valuable for long documents, RAG pipelines, and multi-turn conversations — but they come with higher input-token bills if you fill them every request.
Should I use DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32B or OpenAI: o4 Mini Deep Research?
Choose DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32B if you’re already on the DeepSeek stack, want broad ecosystem support, or prefer its lower input price. Choose OpenAI: o4 Mini Deep Research for OpenAI’s ecosystem, native vision input, or its differentiated capabilities. Run a small benchmark on your own prompts before committing — price is only one axis.
How are these prices kept current?
Prices are pulled directly from OpenRouter’s public models API once every 24 hours via a Convex cron job, then normalized to per-1M-token figures. Last refresh: May 28, 2026.