DeepSeek: R1 vs Qwen: Qwen3.7 Plus
Head-to-head API pricing and cost comparison between DeepSeek’s DeepSeek: R1 and Qwen’s Qwen: Qwen3.7 Plus. Prices auto-refresh daily from OpenRouter.
Qwen: Qwen3.7 Plus is 43% cheaper for input tokens; Qwen: Qwen3.7 Plus also wins on output tokens.
Side-by-side comparison
| Spec | DeepSeek: R1 | Qwen: Qwen3.7 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Input price (per 1M) | $0.70 | $0.40 |
| Cached input (per 1M) | — | $0.08 |
| Output price (per 1M) | $2.50 | $1.60 |
| Batch input (per 1M) | — | — |
| Batch output (per 1M) | — | — |
| Reasoning price (per 1M) | — | — |
| Context window | 164K | 1000K |
| Vision support | No | Yes |
| Caching support | No | Yes |
| Batch API | No | No |
| Reasoning capability | No | No |
Monthly cost at volume
Estimated monthly API spend at common production traffic levels (input/output tokens per request shown).
| Volume | DeepSeek: R1 | Qwen: Qwen3.7 Plus | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
1K req/day 500in / 200out tokens | $25.50 | $15.60 | $9.90 Qwen: Qwen3.7 Plus wins |
10K req/day 1500in / 500out tokens | $690.00 | $420.00 | $270.00 Qwen: Qwen3.7 Plus wins |
100K req/day 3000in / 800out tokens | $12,300 | $7,440 | $4,860 Qwen: Qwen3.7 Plus wins |
1M req/day 8000in / 2000out tokens | $318,000 | $192,000 | $126,000 Qwen: Qwen3.7 Plus wins |
Adjust input/output token counts, request volume, batch & cached pricing.
Related comparisons
Frequently asked questions
Which is cheaper, DeepSeek: R1 or Qwen: Qwen3.7 Plus?
For input tokens, Qwen: Qwen3.7 Plus is roughly 43% cheaper at $0.40/1M vs $0.70/1M. For output tokens, Qwen: Qwen3.7 Plus wins at $1.60/1M. 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 has a context window of 164K tokens. Qwen: Qwen3.7 Plus offers 1000K 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 or Qwen: Qwen3.7 Plus?
Choose DeepSeek: R1 if you’re already on the DeepSeek stack, want broad ecosystem support, or prefer its feature set. Choose Qwen: Qwen3.7 Plus for Qwen’s ecosystem, native vision input, or its cheaper input tokens. 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: Jun 4, 2026.