# Deepseek V3.1 NVFP4 vs Claude Sonnet 5

On provider list prices, Deepseek V3.1 NVFP4 costs $0.60 per million input tokens against $3 for Claude Sonnet 5: 5.0x apart. Output is $1.70 against $15 (8.8x). On Allocate both bill at list plus the 7% transaction fee.

## Specifications

| | Deepseek V3.1 NVFP4 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Lab | DeepSeek | Anthropic |
| Access | Open weights | API only |
| Context window | 128K tokens | 1M tokens |
| List price, input | $0.60 / M tokens | $3 / M tokens |
| List price, output | $1.70 / M tokens | $15 / M tokens |
| Cached input | n/a | n/a |
| License | MIT | Proprietary API |
| Fine-tunable | Yes | No |

Specifications and provider list prices from the Allocate catalog, checked 2026-07-08. Billed price is list plus the 7% transaction fee.

## What the numbers say

Take 1,000,000 requests a month at 1,200 input and 350 output tokens each. That workload costs $1,315 a month on Deepseek V3.1 NVFP4 and $8,850 on Claude Sonnet 5 at list: a gap of $7,535, or 6.7x.

Claude Sonnet 5 reads 1M tokens per request against 128K for Deepseek V3.1 NVFP4, 7.6x the window. That decides which one can take whole documents without splitting them.

## Choose Deepseek V3.1 NVFP4 for

- The lower list price ($0.60 in / $1.70 out per M tokens)
- Open weights you can fine-tune and own
- Fine-tuning under a permissive license (MIT)

## Choose Claude Sonnet 5 for

- Judgment calls with policy context
- Customer-facing writing
- Review and escalation flows

## Common questions

### Which is cheaper, Deepseek V3.1 NVFP4 or Claude Sonnet 5?

Deepseek V3.1 NVFP4, on this workload shape. At list prices it is $0.60/$1.70 per million tokens in and out against $3/$15 for Claude Sonnet 5. Billed on Allocate: $0.64/$1.82 against $3.21/$16.05, list plus 7%.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Sonnet 5: 1,000,000 tokens (1M) against 131,072 (128K) for Deepseek V3.1 NVFP4.

### Can I fine-tune Deepseek V3.1 NVFP4 or Claude Sonnet 5?

Deepseek V3.1 NVFP4 publishes open weights (MIT) and can be fine-tuned on your own data. Claude Sonnet 5 is a closed model served over API; its weights are not available.

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[HTML page](https://allocate.network/compare/deepseek-deepseek-v3-1-vs-sonnet-5) · [Deepseek V3.1 NVFP4](https://allocate.network/models/deepseek-deepseek-v3-1.md) · [Claude Sonnet 5](https://allocate.network/models/sonnet-5.md) · [Machine-readable catalog](https://allocate.network/catalog.json)