DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32B vs OpenAI: o4 Mini High
Head-to-head API pricing and cost comparison between DeepSeek’s DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32B and OpenAI’s OpenAI: o4 Mini High. Prices auto-refresh daily from OpenRouter.
DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32B is 74% 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 High |
|---|---|---|
| Input price (per 1M) | $0.29 | $1.10 |
| Cached input (per 1M) | — | $0.28 |
| Output price (per 1M) | $0.29 | $4.40 |
| Batch input (per 1M) | — | $0.55 |
| Batch output (per 1M) | — | $2.20 |
| 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 High | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
1K req/day 500in / 200out tokens | $6.09 | $42.90 | $36.81 DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32B wins |
10K req/day 1500in / 500out tokens | $174.00 | $1,155 | $981.00 DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32B wins |
100K req/day 3000in / 800out tokens | $3,306 | $20,460 | $17,154 DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32B wins |
1M req/day 8000in / 2000out tokens | $87,000 | $528,000 | $441,000 DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32B wins |
Adjust input/output token counts, request volume, batch & cached pricing.
Related comparisons
- Anthropic: Claude Haiku 4.5 vs DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32BCompare pricing →
- Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.7 vs DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32BCompare pricing →
- Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.7 (Fast) vs DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32BCompare pricing →
- Anthropic: Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32BCompare pricing →
Frequently asked questions
Which is cheaper, DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32B or OpenAI: o4 Mini High?
For input tokens, DeepSeek: R1 Distill Qwen 32B is roughly 74% cheaper at $0.29/1M vs $1.10/1M. 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 High 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 High?
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 High 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.