Gemini 3.8 Flash vs R1
Pick up to 3 models · pricing, context and capabilities · simulate your product cost
Data updated on September 30, 2026· 217 models
Gemini 3.8 Flash is Google's most intelligent Flash model with significant gains from 3.7 Flash across software engineering, agentic tasks, and multi-step reasoning.
- Reasoning estimated
- Speed estimated
- ▲
- Input
- Output
- Context
- ▲1 M tokens
- Max output
- ▲66 K
- Input, $ per 1M tokens
- $0.750
- Output, $ per 1M tokens
- $3.75
- Cache read, $ per 1M
- $0.075
- Batch (input / output)
- $0.375 / $1.88
- Tool calling
- Yes
- Released
- ▲09/02/2026
- Knowledge cutoff
- —
- API id
- google/gemini-3.8-flash
DeepSeek R1 is here: Performance on par with OpenAI o1, but open-sourced and with fully open reasoning tokens.
- Reasoning estimated
- ▲
- Speed estimated
- Input
- Output
- Context
- 64 K tokens
- Max output
- 16 K
- Input, $ per 1M tokens
- ▲$0.700
- Output, $ per 1M tokens
- ▲$2.50
- Cache read, $ per 1M
- $0.140
- Batch (input / output)
- —
- Tool calling
- Yes
- Released
- 01/01/2025
- Knowledge cutoff
- —
- API id
- deepseek/deepseek-r1
Which is the better API choice: Gemini 3.8 Flash vs R1?
- R1: cheapest input (7% less than Gemini 3.8 Flash)
- R1: cheapest output
- Gemini 3.8 Flash: largest context (1 M)
- Gemini 3.8 Flash: the newest (09/02/2026)
- R1: most reasoning (estimated)
- Gemini 3.8 Flash: the fastest (estimated)
R1 costs 7% less on input and 33% less on output than Gemini 3.8 Flash ($0.700 / $2.50 versus $0.750 / $3.75 per million tokens). Gemini 3.8 Flash accepts more context (1 M). On capabilities, Gemini 3.8 Flash accepts images; only Gemini 3.8 Flash accepts audio. Gemini 3.8 Flash offers a batch tier at half price for jobs that do not need an immediate answer.
What would your product cost?
Estimate the monthly cost with your app's real volume. List prices, no cache or batch discounts.
With R1 you save $5.75 a month versus Gemini 3.8 Flash (22% less).
The 6 cheapest for this scenario (chat, last 12 months)
- 1Lyria 3 Pro Preview Google$0.00
- 2Lyria 3 Clip Preview Google$0.00
- 3Qwen3.7 Flash Qwen$0.97
- 4DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 DeepSeek$1.55
- 5Ministral 3 3B 2512 Mistral$1.90
- 6Qwen3.5-Flash Qwen$2.02
Paste your prompt: tokens and cost per model
Rough estimate (about 4 characters per token). Nothing is sent to any server.
Cost of sending it 1,000 times (input only)
- 1R1 DeepSeek$0.053
- 2Gemini 3.8 Flash Google$0.057
- 3Claude Sonnet 5.5 Anthropic$0.152
- 4Claude Sonnet 5 Anthropic$0.152
- 5Claude Opus 5.5 Anthropic$0.304
- 6Claude Opus 5 Anthropic$0.380
- 7Claude Fable 5.1 Anthropic$0.760
- 8Claude Fable 5 Anthropic$0.760
Popular comparisons
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- GPT-6.1 Sol vs Gemini 3.8 Flash
- GPT-6.1 Sol vs DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
- GPT-6.1 Sol vs Grok 4.7
- Gemini 3.8 Flash vs DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
- Gemini 3.8 Flash vs Grok 4.7
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs Grok 4.7
Frequently asked questions
Which is the better API choice: Gemini 3.8 Flash vs R1?
R1 costs 7% less on input and 33% less on output than Gemini 3.8 Flash ($0.700 / $2.50 versus $0.750 / $3.75 per million tokens). Gemini 3.8 Flash accepts more context (1 M). On capabilities, Gemini 3.8 Flash accepts images; only Gemini 3.8 Flash accepts audio. Gemini 3.8 Flash offers a batch tier at half price for jobs that do not need an immediate answer.
Which is cheaper: Gemini 3.8 Flash and R1?
R1 is cheaper: $0.700 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens, versus $0.750 / $3.75 for Gemini 3.8 Flash.
Which has more context: Gemini 3.8 Flash and R1?
Gemini 3.8 Flash accepts 1 M tokens of context; R1 accepts 64 K.
Which is newer: Gemini 3.8 Flash and R1?
Gemini 3.8 Flash was released on 09/02/2026; R1 on 01/01/2025.
What would 10,000 requests a month cost with Gemini 3.8 Flash and R1?
With 1,500 input and 400 output tokens per request: Gemini 3.8 Flash: $26.25; R1: $20.50 a month, at list price.
Where do the prices come from and how often are they updated?
From the public catalogs of OpenRouter, models.dev and LiteLLM, which publish each provider's list prices. They sync once a day and the last update date is shown above the comparison.
What does price per million tokens mean?
It is what the provider charges per million tokens you send (input) or the model generates (output). A token is roughly 4 characters. Output almost always costs more than input.
Sources: OpenRouter, models.dev and LiteLLM. Prices in USD per million tokens, list price, no volume discounts. Prompt tokens are an estimate; each provider's tokenizer may differ.