DeepSeek V3 vs Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

DeepSeek V3 at $0.296 in and $1.18 out and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct at $0.414 in and $0.460 out — per million tokens, from the same wallet.

DeepSeek V3

DeepSeek

0.24¢

for a client proposal

$0.296 in · $1.18 out / 1M

128K context · released December 2024

Full page →

Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

Qwen

0.24¢

for a client proposal

$0.414 in · $0.460 out / 1M

33K context · released September 2024

Full page →

Asking all both at once — identical prompt, identical context — costs about 0.49¢ for a typical client proposal.

At a glance

Cheapest input: DeepSeek V3 at $0.296 per million tokens.
Cheapest output: Qwen2.5 72B Instruct at $0.460 per million tokens.
Largest context: DeepSeek V3 at 128K tokens — about 180 pages.

Cost per task

Estimated totals at the rates above. Solid bar is input, lighter bar is output.

Quick code fix

2K in · 500 out

DeepSeek V3

0.12¢

Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

0.11¢

Draft a client proposal from notes

5K in · 800 out

DeepSeek V3

0.24¢

Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

0.24¢

Context-heavy session (Alyph workspace)

155K in · 4K out

DeepSeek V3

needs 155K ctx

Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

needs 155K ctx

Analyze a 50-page legal contract

35K in · 1K out

DeepSeek V3

1.2¢

Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

needs 35K ctx

Large architecture refactor

250K in · 3K out

DeepSeek V3

needs 250K ctx

Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

needs 250K ctx

Solid part of each bar is input tokens, the lighter part is output. Models that don’t fit a task are marked instead of priced.

Cost vs Token Amount

Drag the slider to adjust the split between input and output workload.

80% Input20% Output

DeepSeek V3

Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

Adjust the ratio slider to change how output tokens influence the final price for equivalent workloads.

Pricing

DeepSeek V3

Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

Input / 1M tokens

$0.296

$0.414

Output / 1M tokens

$1.18

$0.460

Specs

DeepSeek V3

Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

Provider

DeepSeek

Qwen

Released

December 2024

September 2024

Context window

128K

33K

Max output

16K

Input

Text

Output

Text

Reasoning

Answers directly

Knowledge cutoff

2024-07-31

2024-06-30

Try it with real numbers

2K tokens in · 500 tokens out.

DeepSeek V3

DeepSeek

0.12¢

for this task

50% input · 50% output

Full pricing →

Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

Qwen

0.11¢

for this task

78% input · 22% output

Full pricing →

All 2, same prompt and context: 0.22¢. That is the entire cost of the comparison.

Your $5 welcome credit covers about 2,231 of these.

Which should you pick?

For long documents, DeepSeek V3 has the largest context window here — 128K tokens.

On price, DeepSeek V3 is the cheapest of the two on a typical task, at about 0.24¢.

Or don’t pick. Send the identical prompt to all both, read the answers side by side, and keep the winner. How to run a fair bake-off →

DeepSeek V3 pricing →Qwen2.5 72B Instruct pricing →Add Lyria 3 Clip Preview Add Grok 4.20

Questions, answered

Which is cheaper, DeepSeek V3 or Qwen2.5 72B Instruct?

On a typical client proposal (5K tokens in, 800 out): DeepSeek V3 at 0.24¢; Qwen2.5 72B Instruct at 0.24¢. Long prompts can change the order when long-context rates apply.

Which has the largest context window?

DeepSeek V3 — 128K tokens, about 180 pages.

Can I run DeepSeek V3 and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct side by side on Alyph?

Yes — that is what Alyph is built for: the identical prompt with identical context to all 2, answers rendered side by side, billed from one wallet. This exact combination costs about 0.49¢ for a typical task.

Ask both at once

Identical prompt, identical context, answers side by side — about 0.49¢ for a typical client proposal. Free to start, with $5 of credit.