Side-by-side comparison of pricing, 12 benchmarks, and generation speed.
| Metric | DeepSeek R1 0528 (May '25) | Gemini 3 Flash Preview (Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| Input ($/M tokens) | $1.35 | $0.5 |
| Output ($/M tokens) | $3 | $3 |
Verdict. Gemini 3 Flash Preview (Reasoning) takes the aggregate benchmark matchup 1–0 across 1 categories. Real workloads usually care about a handful of specific tasks — see the per-benchmark table above.
Pricing. Both models sit in the budget bracket for output-token pricing. At 1.0× the per-million-token cost, Gemini 3 Flash Preview (Reasoning) is meaningfully cheaper if your traffic is output-heavy (long completions, document generation, agent loops). Gemini 3 Flash Preview (Reasoning) makes more sense when output volume is low and absolute reasoning quality justifies the premium.
Strengths. DeepSeek R1 0528 (May '25) is strongest on Intelligence Index (20.4). Gemini 3 Flash Preview (Reasoning) leads on Intelligence Index (38.7).
Speed. Speed data is incomplete for this pair; benchmark and price should decide.
Provider. DeepSeek and Google sell to overlapping but distinct developer audiences: DeepSeek tends to ship frontier reasoning models with premium positioning, while Google often prices more aggressively. Your existing vendor relationships, billing, and SLA preferences may matter as much as the raw numbers above.
Workload cost. Workload scenarios (per million requests at 30M input + 15M output tokens): DeepSeek R1 0528 (May '25) costs $85.50 ($1026/year); Gemini 3 Flash Preview (Reasoning) costs $60.00 ($720/year). At a smaller 5M-input/2M-output scale (single-developer tool or prototype): DeepSeek R1 0528 (May '25) ≈ $12.75/run, Gemini 3 Flash Preview (Reasoning) ≈ $8.50/run. At agent/realtime scale (200M input / 100M output per million requests): DeepSeek R1 0528 (May '25) ≈ $570/run, Gemini 3 Flash Preview (Reasoning) ≈ $400/run. Gemini 3 Flash Preview (Reasoning) becomes more attractive at higher volume — the absolute per-token pricing difference compounds when you ship at scale.
Recommendation. Both models have legitimate use cases — the right answer depends on whether you are optimizing for benchmark ceiling, latency, or unit cost. Start with the cheaper / faster model, evaluate against your specific task, and only switch if the upgrade shows a meaningful lift.
Data from Artificial Analysis API — 12 benchmarks
Gemini 3 Flash Preview (Reasoning) is cheaper overall. Its blended price (3:1 input/output ratio) is $1.13/M tokens vs $1.76/M for DeepSeek R1 0528 (May '25).
Gemini 3 Flash Preview (Reasoning) wins 1 out of 12 benchmarks compared to 0 for DeepSeek R1 0528 (May '25). See the detailed benchmark chart above for per-category results.
Gemini 3 Flash Preview (Reasoning) generates tokens faster at 189 tok/s vs — tok/s. However, Gemini 3 Flash Preview (Reasoning) has lower time-to-first-token (6.57s vs —s).
Choose based on your priorities: Gemini 3 Flash Preview (Reasoning) for lower cost, Gemini 3 Flash Preview (Reasoning) for stronger benchmark performance, and Gemini 3 Flash Preview (Reasoning) for faster generation. For latency-sensitive apps, check the TTFT comparison above.