Doubao Seed 2.0 Review: Benchmarks + Pricing (vs GPT-5.2, Claude Opus 4.5, Gemini 3 Pro)
TL;DR
- Seed 2.0 is ByteDance's new foundation model family (released February 14, 2026), powering the Doubao app — China's #1 AI chatbot with 155 million weekly active users.
- The Pro variant scores 98.3 on AIME 2025, 3020 Codeforces rating, and 89.5 on VideoMME — directly competitive with GPT-5.2, Claude Opus 4.5, and Gemini 3 Pro.
- Pricing is the headline: Seed 2.0 Pro costs ~$0.47/M input tokens and ~$2.37/M output tokens — ~3.7x cheaper than GPT-5.2 ($1.75/$14.00) on input, ~5.9x cheaper on output, and ~10x cheaper than Claude Opus 4.5 ($5.00/$25.00).
- Four model tiers — Pro, Lite, Mini, Code — cover everything from frontier reasoning to high-throughput batch processing.
- API is live on Volcengine. Seed 2.0 is coming to EvoLink — no Chinese phone number or ID required.
What Is Seed 2.0?
Seed 2.0 is ByteDance's second-generation foundation model family, developed by the internal Seed research team. It powers the Doubao app (China's most-used AI chatbot) and is available via the Volcano Engine API platform.
- Seed 2.0 Pro — Frontier reasoning, research, complex agents (highest benchmarks)
- Seed 2.0 Lite — General production workloads (best balance of performance and cost)
- Seed 2.0 Mini — High-throughput batch processing (fastest, cheapest)
- Seed 2.0 Code — Software development (code generation, debugging, PR reviews)
Benchmark Performance: How Does It Stack Up?
Benchmark numbers are from ByteDance's official model card and project page, summarized by The Decoder and TechNode. Reuters covered the release and user metrics.
Math & Reasoning
| Benchmark | Pro | Lite | Mini |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME 2025 | 98.3 | 93 | 87 |
| AIME 2026 | 94.2 | 88.3 | 86.7 |
| GPQA Diamond | 88.9 | 85.1 | 79 |
| MMLU-Pro | 87 | 87.7 | 83.6 |
Coding & Software Engineering
| Benchmark | Pro / Code | Lite | Mini |
|---|---|---|---|
| Codeforces | 3020 | 2233 | 1644 |
| LiveCodeBench v6 | 87.8 | 81.7 | 64.1 |
| SWE-Bench Verified | 76.5 | — | — |
| Terminal Bench 2.0 | 55.8 | — | — |
Multimodal & Video Understanding
This is where Seed 2.0 genuinely stands out:
| Benchmark | Score | Note |
|---|---|---|
| VideoMME | 89.5 | Hour-long video understanding |
| MathVision | 88.8 | Visual mathematical reasoning (SOTA) |
| MotionBench | 75.2 | Dynamic scene understanding |
| MMMU | 85.4 | Multimodal reasoning |
Agentic Capabilities
| Benchmark | Score |
|---|---|
| BrowseComp | 77.3 |
| tau2-Bench (Retail) | 90.4 |
| tau2-Bench (Telecom) | 94.2 |
| WideSearch | 74.7 |
These aren't theoretical — ByteDance has deployed agentic capabilities into production: deep research, coding assistants via TRAE IDE, and autonomous search agents in the Doubao app.
The Price That Changes the Equation
Here's the data point that matters most for developers:
| Model | Input ($/1M tokens) | Output ($/1M tokens) |
|---|---|---|
| Seed 2.0 Pro | $0.47 | $2.37 |
| Seed 2.0 Lite | $0.09 | $0.53 |
| Seed 2.0 Mini | $0.03 | $0.31 |
| GPT-5.2 High | $1.75 | $14.00 |
| Claude Opus 4.5 | $5.00 | $25.00 |
In perspective:
- Seed 2.0 Pro is ~3.7x cheaper than GPT-5.2 on input and ~5.9x cheaper on output
- Compared to Claude Opus 4.5, it's ~10.6x cheaper on input and ~10.5x cheaper on output
- Seed 2.0 Mini costs less than $0.35 per million tokens combined
When the 10x Price Difference Matters Most
| Scenario | Monthly Volume | GPT-5.2 Cost | Seed 2.0 Pro Cost | Seed 2.0 Mini Cost | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agentic workflows | 10,000 tasks/day (~1B output tokens/mo) | ~$14,000 | ~$2,370 | — | 83% |
| Batch processing | 1M documents/mo (~500M input tokens) | ~$875 | ~$235 | ~$15 | 98% |
| Video analysis | 100 hours/day multimodal processing | ~$8,400 | ~$1,420 | — | 83% |
| Startup chatbot | 50K conversations/day | ~$5,250 | ~$890 | ~$155 | 83-97% |
For teams spending $5,000-$50,000/month on API costs, switching to Seed 2.0 can extend runway by months.
- Agentic workflows — Multi-step tasks consuming thousands of tokens. At GPT-5.2 prices: ~$14,000/month. With Seed 2.0 Pro: ~$2,370.
- Batch processing — Content moderation, classification at scale. Seed 2.0 Mini makes million-document pipelines feasible.
- Video analysis — Processing hours of video content. Leading VideoMME scores + low pricing = uniquely cost-effective.
- Startups and indie developers — For teams burning $5K-50K/month on API costs, a 10x reduction directly extends runway.
Where Seed 2.0 Falls Short (Honest Take)
No model is perfect, and ByteDance is surprisingly transparent about the gaps:
| Area | The Gap | Impact | Better Alternative |
|---|---|---|---|
| Code generation | SWE-Bench 76.5 vs Claude 80.9; SWE-Lancer 49.4 vs 56.1 | Complex software engineering tasks may produce lower-quality results | Claude Opus 4.5 |
| Hallucination control | Underperforms Western competitors on factual accuracy benchmarks | High-stakes apps (medical, legal, financial) need extra validation | GPT-5.2, Claude Opus 4.5 |
| Long-tail knowledge | Gemini 3 Pro leads on obscure factual recall | Applications requiring niche domain knowledge may get incomplete answers | Gemini 3 Pro |
| English optimization | Primarily trained for Chinese-language tasks via Doubao | English outputs may lack nuanced quality of natively English-trained models | GPT-5.2, Claude Opus 4.5 |
| Brand recognition | 155M weekly users in China, near-zero awareness internationally | Customer-facing apps lose the "Powered by GPT" marketing advantage | GPT-5.2 |
1. Code generation trails Claude
On SWE-Bench Verified (76.5 vs 80.9) and SWE-Lancer (49.4 vs 56.1), Claude Opus 4.5 still leads. For complex software engineering, Claude remains the stronger choice.
2. Hallucination control
ByteDance's own benchmarks show Seed 2.0 underperforms Western competitors on hallucination avoidance. For high-stakes applications (medical, legal, financial), this matters.
3. Long-tail knowledge
Gemini 3 Pro outperforms on long-tail knowledge retrieval. For obscure factual recall, Gemini may be better.
4. English vs Chinese optimization
Primarily optimized for Chinese-language tasks. English performance is competitive on benchmarks but may not match the nuanced quality of models trained primarily on English data.
5. Brand recognition outside China
155 million weekly users in China but near-zero brand awareness internationally. For customer-facing "Powered by" marketing, this matters.
Which Seed 2.0 Model Should You Use?
| Pro | Lite | Mini | Code | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Deep reasoning, research, complex agents, video | General production, chatbots, document processing | High-throughput batch, content moderation, classification | Software development, debugging, PR reviews |
| AIME 2025 | 98.3 | 93 | 87 | — |
| Codeforces | 3020 | 2233 | 1644 | 3020 |
| VideoMME | 89.5 | 87.7 | 81.2 | — |
| SWE-Bench | 76.5 | — | — | 76.5 |
| Input $/1M | $0.47 | $0.09 | $0.03 | ~$0.47 |
| Output $/1M | $2.37 | $0.53 | $0.31 | ~$2.37 |
| When to choose | Need frontier intelligence | Default for most production — 80% cheaper than Pro | Volume > accuracy — millions of docs | Primary workload is code |
Seed 2.0 Pro
Seed 2.0 Lite
Seed 2.0 Mini
Seed 2.0 Code
How to Access Seed 2.0 API
Option 1: Direct via Volcengine (Chinese developers)
The API is live on Volcano Engine:
- Trial: exp.volcengine.com/ark
- Console: console.volcengine.com/ark
- Model ID (example):
doubao-seed-2-0-pro-260215(check console for the latest version suffix)
The API is OpenAI SDK-compatible — change the base URL and API key, and your existing code works.
Option 2: Via EvoLink (Global developers)
- Seedance — ByteDance's video generation (same ecosystem)
- Seedream — ByteDance's image generation
- Kling — Kuaishou's video generation
- Wan 2.6 — Alibaba's video generation
- Z-Image — Fast image generation
- DeepSeek — Open-weight reasoning LLM
Seed 2.0 Pro vs GPT-5.2 vs Claude Opus 4.5 vs Gemini 3 Pro
Quick comparison:
| Category | Seed 2.0 Pro | GPT-5.2 | Claude Opus 4.5 | Gemini 3 Pro |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Math (AIME 2025) | 98.3 | — | — | — |
| Coding (SWE-Bench) | 76.5 | 80.0 | 80.9 | 76.2 |
| Video (VideoMME) | 89.5 | — | — | — |
| Input cost/1M | $0.47 | $1.75 | $5.00 | — |
| Output cost/1M | $2.37 | $14.00 | $25.00 | — |
FAQ
Is Seed 2.0 really that much cheaper than GPT-5.2?
Yes, based on published pricing. Seed 2.0 Pro costs ~$0.47/M input tokens vs GPT-5.2's ~$1.75/M (~3.7x cheaper on input). On output, it's $2.37/M vs $14.00/M (~5.9x cheaper). Compared to Claude Opus 4.5 ($5/$25), the savings are even larger — roughly 10x on both input and output. These are Volcengine's published API prices.
How does Seed 2.0 compare to DeepSeek?
Both are Chinese AI models competing on price-performance. DeepSeek focuses on open-weight models and reasoning transparency, while Seed 2.0 emphasizes multimodal capabilities and agentic task execution. DeepSeek: 81.6M weekly users. Doubao/Seed 2.0: 155M weekly users.
Can I use Seed 2.0 API outside China?
Volcengine has strict identity verification requirements that may require Chinese credentials, making direct registration difficult for international developers. Seed 2.0 is coming to EvoLink, which will provide global access with no Chinese phone number or ID required, using an OpenAI-compatible API format — and at official discounted pricing (typically cheaper than going direct to the provider).
What is the difference between Pro, Lite, Mini, and Code?
Is Seed 2.0 better than GPT-5.2?
It depends on the task. Seed 2.0 Pro matches or exceeds GPT-5.2 on math, multimodal, and video understanding benchmarks. However, it trails on code generation (SWE-Bench), hallucination control, and English-language nuance. The strongest argument for Seed 2.0 is the price — competitive performance at ~3.7-5.9x lower cost than GPT-5.2, and ~10x cheaper than Claude Opus 4.5.
What is the Doubao app?
Doubao is ByteDance's consumer AI chatbot — China's #1 with 155 million weekly active users. Seed 2.0 powers it. The overseas version "Dola" was reported to have surpassed 10 million daily active users by end of 2025.
When was Seed 2.0 released?
February 14, 2026 — strategically timed two days before China's Spring Festival Gala, where ByteDance's technology powered the entire broadcast.
What Chinese AI models does EvoLink offer?
EvoLink currently provides access to multiple Chinese AI models at official discounted pricing — including Seedance (video), Seedream (image), Kling (video), Wan 2.6 (video), Z-Image (image), and DeepSeek (LLM). Seed 2.0 is coming to EvoLink soon. All models use an OpenAI-compatible API format with a single API key, and EvoLink's volume-discounted rates are typically 20-70% cheaper than going direct.
