Claude Sonnet 4.5vs.DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017
Which one is better?
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 is clearly ahead in the overall index and is cheaper too: Claude Sonnet 4.5 costs 20 times (input) and 25 times (output) as much per token.
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Rank 62 to 76
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017
Rank 14 to 22
Claude Sonnet 4.5
slow
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017
fast
Claude Sonnet 4.5
expensive
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017
cheap
Claude Sonnet 4.5
- Subscription
No Anthropic subscription includes this model. Through other providers from ≈ €6.36 a month (ElevenLabs Starter, with limited credits). 44 plans in Germany.
- Via API
$3 input, $15 output per 1M tokens, unchanged since our price tracking began on Aug 14, 2026.
- Note
- There is a successor: Claude Sonnet 4.6 (rank 43 to 54, same price).
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017
- Subscription
No DeepSeek subscription includes this model. Through other providers from ≈ €6.36 a month (Token Plan Individual Lite, with limited credits). 7 plans in Germany.
- Via API
$0.15 input, $0.60 output per 1M tokens according to the provider; the price index has listed it at $0.30 and $1 since Oct 26, 2026.
Overall index with data through Oct 29, 2026 · Prices from Oct 29, 2026 · Speed: measured by Artificial Analysis · Subscriptions as of Oct 24, 2026 · Subscription prices incl. VAT
Where is the difference?
Values from 0 to 100 per task area. We only name a winner when the gap is large enough and there are enough tests.
Sonnet 4.5 ahead: 0DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 ahead: 4level: 0too little data: 4of 8 areas
Show 1 more areas that do not count toward the overall index
See for yourself: same task, one attempt
The same prompt for both models. We show the latest attempt without fixes; it does not count toward the overall index.
Pelican on a bicycle
A community classic for free-form SVG drawing.
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Reasoning (requested): high
Current attempt
- Run date
- Oct 1, 2026
- API provider
- openrouter
- Requested API model
- anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5
- API model reported in response
- anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5
- Reasoning setting
- high
- Pinned endpoint
- Anthropic | anthropic/claude-4.5-sonnet-20250929
- Temperature
- Provider default
- Token limit including reasoning
- 8,192 tokens
- Test protocol
- community-visual-tests-v1
- Technical checks
- Passed, not a quality rating
- Response time
- 30.2 s
Visually reviewed. This individual test does not establish overall model quality.
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017
Not tested yet
Prompt and test conditions
Generate an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle
Token limit including reasoning: 8,192 tokens
Task origin (Simon Willison)SVG short test
There is no shared test round for this selection. Results from different rounds are not mixed.
All data side by side
The better value is bold. For the overall index only when the gap is clear.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
|---|---|---|
| Intelligence | ||
| Overall index0 to 100, higher is better | below 1 | 64 |
| Rank | Rank 62 to 76 of 95 | Rank 14 to 22 of 95 |
| Price per 1M tokens | ||
| Inputwhat you send | $3 | $0.15 |
| Outputwhat the model writes | $15 | $0.60 |
| Speed | ||
| Tokens per second | 48 | 178 |
| Technical | ||
| Context windowhow much text the model reads at once | 200,000 tokens≈ 300 A4 pages | 1.05 M tokens≈ 1,570 A4 pages |
| Knowledge cutoff | January 2025 | n/a |
| Released | September 2025 | Oct 17, 2026 |
| Availability | Active | Open Source |
| Open weights | no | yes |
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017: At peak times (Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, 01:00-04:00 UTC; Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, 06:00-10:00 UTC) the price is $0.30 input and $1.20 output per 1M tokens. The table shows the off-peak price.
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017, Time-based API pricing: Off peak: $0.15 input, $0.60 output, and $0.003 cached input. Weekdays UTC 01:00-04:00 and 06:00-10:00: $0.30, $1.20, and $0.006. Chinese public holidays are excluded. Source
Prices without caching or batch discounts · Page count as a rule of thumb from Artificial Analysis
Shared benchmarks
Single results from the same benchmark version, task and metric. A value is bold only with the same test setup and a clear gap.
No directly comparable result yet
No published benchmark for Claude Sonnet 4.5 and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 currently matches in version, task and metric. We therefore show no estimated or blended values.
Compare another matchup
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