Comparison

DeepSeek V4 vs GPT-5.4 vs Claude Opus 4.6: What Is Verified Today (March 2026)

EvoLink Team

Product Team

March 7, 2026

8 min read

If you are comparing DeepSeek V4, GPT-5.4, and Claude Opus 4.6, the first question is not which model wins. The first question is which parts of the comparison are actually verifiable today.

As of March 6, 2026, OpenAI and Anthropic both publish official pricing and capability pages for GPT-5.4 and Claude Opus 4.6. DeepSeek, by contrast, publicly documents DeepSeek-V3.2 pricing in its API docs, but we could not verify an official public API listing or official pricing page for DeepSeek V4.

That means this article is not a rumor roundup. It is a verified-status comparison designed for teams that need a safe publishing baseline before making product, procurement, or routing decisions.

TL;DR

GPT-5.4 is the clearest production option if you need an officially documented 1,050,000 context window, 128,000 max output tokens, and OpenAI platform tooling today.
Claude Opus 4.6 is also officially available, with pricing published by Anthropic and a 1M token context window available in the Claude Developer Platform beta.
DeepSeek V4 may be important, but as of March 6, 2026 we could not verify an official public V4 model page or public V4 API pricing page from DeepSeek.
If cost matters today and you want an officially priced DeepSeek baseline, DeepSeek-V3.2 is the model DeepSeek currently documents in its pricing page.

What Is Officially Verified Today

The table below keeps a strict rule: only officially documented information goes in the main comparison table.

Topic	GPT-5.4	Claude Opus 4.6	DeepSeek V4
Provider	OpenAI	Anthropic	DeepSeek
Official public status	Documented on official model and pricing pages	Documented on official product page	No official public V4 pricing or API listing verified
Official input pricing	$2.50 per 1M input tokens	From $5 per 1M input tokens	Not publicly documented
Official output pricing	$15.00 per 1M output tokens	From $25 per 1M output tokens	Not publicly documented
Cached input pricing	$0.25 per 1M cached input tokens	Cache pricing depends on prompt caching tiers	Not publicly documented
Context information	1,050,000 context window	1M token context window in Claude Developer Platform beta	Not publicly documented
Max output tokens	128,000	Not clearly stated on the product page we verified	Not publicly documented
Practical status for buyers	Available now	Available now	Watchlist item, not verified as a public API product

Pricing Reality Check

For teams making a budget decision right now, the most useful comparison is not rumored V4 pricing. It is the pricing that vendors actually publish.

Model	Officially documented pricing status	Input price	Output price	Notes
GPT-5.4	Official OpenAI pricing page	$2.50	$15.00	Cached input pricing is also published
Claude Opus 4.6	Official Anthropic product page	From $5.00	From $25.00	Anthropic describes multiple pricing entry points and beta context options
DeepSeek-V3.2	Official DeepSeek pricing page	$0.28 cache miss / $0.028 cache hit	$0.42	This is the currently documented DeepSeek baseline
DeepSeek V4	No public official pricing verified	Unknown	Unknown	Do not model budgets using leaked numbers

The operational takeaway is simple:

Use GPT-5.4 or Claude Opus 4.6 if you need a documented frontier model now.
Use DeepSeek-V3.2 if you need a lower-cost DeepSeek option with official published pricing.
Do not commit product budgets to DeepSeek V4 until DeepSeek publishes official pricing and model documentation.

What Remains Unverified For DeepSeek V4

This second table is where rumor-level information belongs. It should not be mixed into the main comparison table.

Claim category	Public claim seen in drafts or community posts	Verified from official DeepSeek pages?	Publish rule
Pricing	`~$0.14 / $0.28 per 1M`	No	Remove from factual comparison
Context window	`1M context`	No official V4 page verified	Move to unverified section only
License	`MIT` or `Apache 2.0` open-weight	No	Do not state as fact
Benchmarks	`80%+ SWE-bench Verified`	No	Do not place in main table
Modalities	`text + image + video + audio`	No	Do not state as confirmed capability
Model scale	`~1T params, ~32B active`	No	Do not state as confirmed specification
Deployment details	Huawei Ascend or Cambricon optimization	No	Treat as unverified reporting only

This is the core editorial rule for this topic: if DeepSeek has not published it, the article should not present it as a confirmed product fact.

How Developers Should Interpret The Market Right Now

A clean comparison in March 2026 looks like this:

GPT-5.4 is the strongest option if you want a clearly documented long-context model and direct OpenAI platform support.
Claude Opus 4.6 is a strong choice if you want Anthropic's current flagship tier with officially published pricing and a 1M-context beta path.
DeepSeek V4 is still a monitoring target rather than a production dependency.

That does not mean V4 is unimportant. It means the responsible posture is to separate interest from integration readiness.

For product teams, this usually leads to a practical two-track plan:

Ship now on a model with official pricing and docs.
Keep your routing layer flexible enough to test V4 later.

If your app already uses an OpenAI-compatible abstraction layer, that migration path stays relatively cheap. If your app hard-codes provider-specific assumptions, waiting for V4 gives you risk without saving engineering effort.

Recommended Decision By Use Case

Use case	Best current choice	Why
Need a documented long-context production model now	GPT-5.4	OpenAI publishes context window, max output, and pricing directly
Need an officially available Anthropic flagship	Claude Opus 4.6	Anthropic publishes current product and pricing details
Need a lower-cost officially documented DeepSeek option	DeepSeek-V3.2	DeepSeek publishes public pricing for V3.2 today
Want to evaluate V4 when it becomes real	Keep V4 on a watchlist	Wait for official model page, pricing, and API docs first

FAQ

1. Is DeepSeek V4 officially released?

As of March 6, 2026, we could not verify an official public V4 model listing or public V4 pricing page from DeepSeek. That means V4 should not be treated as a confirmed public API product in a production comparison.

2. Can I compare DeepSeek V4 pricing with GPT-5.4 today?

Not responsibly. GPT-5.4 has official OpenAI pricing, but V4 pricing claims circulating in drafts and community posts are not backed by a public DeepSeek pricing page we could verify.

3. Does GPT-5.4 really support a 1,050,000-token context window?

Yes. OpenAI's official GPT-5.4 model page documents a 1,050,000 context window and 128,000 max output tokens.

4. Does Claude Opus 4.6 support 1M context?

Anthropic's official Opus page states a 1M token context window is available in the Claude Developer Platform beta. That means the feature is official, but you should still verify your own access path and pricing terms.

5. What is the cheapest officially documented option in this comparison set?

Among the officially priced models discussed here, DeepSeek-V3.2 is the lowest-cost documented DeepSeek option today. It is not the same product as V4, but it is the current public DeepSeek baseline for real budget planning.

6. Should I wait for DeepSeek V4 before shipping?

Usually no. If you need to ship in the near term, build on a model with official docs and pricing now, then keep your provider layer flexible enough to benchmark V4 once it becomes officially available.

7. Why does this article avoid leaked benchmarks?

Because leaked or community-reported benchmark values are not stable enough for the main comparison table. If a number cannot be verified from official vendor materials, it should not drive production recommendations.

8. What is the safest integration strategy if I want to test V4 later?

Use a model-agnostic routing layer, keep prompts and evaluations versioned, and avoid hard-coding assumptions about one provider's tool schema or rate limits. That way, V4 becomes an evaluation target later instead of a blocking dependency now.