R1 pricing and routing profile
R1 from DeepSeek lists at $0.70 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens, with a 64,000-token context window. Prices from OpenRouter's catalogue on 2026-09-28.
Tool callingReasoning control
Cost per 1,000 requests
| Request shape | List cost |
|---|---|
| Classification or routing (600 tokens in, 10 out) | $0.445 |
| Chat reply (2,000 in, 400 out) | $2.40 |
| Retrieval-augmented answer (8,000 in, 500 out) | $6.85 |
Before prompt caching. Try your own shape in the cost calculator.
Can Gimbix route to it first?
Not as a first-answer model through OpenRouter: no host returns token log probabilities for R1. It can still be the model Gimbix falls back to when a cheaper model is unsure.
Cheaper models that can answer first
Models priced below R1 that expose a confidence signal. Whether they answer your traffic as well is what a Gimbix pilot measures.
| Model | Input / output per 1M | Cheaper on a chat reply |
|---|---|---|
| Kimi K2 Thinking | $0.60 / $2.50 | 8% |
| GPT Audio Mini | $0.60 / $2.40 | 10% |
| GLM 5.2 | $0.65 / $2.04 | 12% |
| GLM 5 | $0.60 / $1.92 | 18% |
| R1 0528 | $0.50 / $2.15 | 22% |
| Kimi K2.5 | $0.45 / $2.25 | 25% |
Questions
How much does R1 cost?
R1 lists at $0.70 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens on OpenRouter as of 2026-09-28. A typical chat reply of 2,000 input and 400 output tokens costs about $2.40 per 1,000 requests.
What is the context window of R1?
64,000 tokens.
Can a cheaper model replace R1?
Sometimes. Gimbix proves it on your own traffic before routing: the cheaper model must match R1 on one half of your requests and make at most three answers worse on the other.