R1 vs Devstral Small 1.1
R1 wins the majority of our benchmarks — 7 of 12 tested categories — with particular dominance in creative problem solving, strategic analysis, faithfulness, and agentic planning. Devstral Small 1.1 edges ahead only on classification and safety calibration, and ties on structured output, tool calling, and long context. At $2.50/MTok output vs $0.30/MTok, R1 costs more than 8x as much — a gap that matters enormously at scale, especially for tasks where both models score identically.
deepseek
R1
Benchmark Scores
External Benchmarks
Pricing
Input
$0.700/MTok
Output
$2.50/MTok
modelpicker.net
mistral
Devstral Small 1.1
Benchmark Scores
External Benchmarks
Pricing
Input
$0.100/MTok
Output
$0.300/MTok
modelpicker.net
Benchmark Analysis
Across our 12-test internal suite, R1 wins 7 categories, Devstral Small 1.1 wins 2, and 3 are tied.
Where R1 leads:
- Creative problem solving: R1 scores 5/5, tied for 1st among 8 models out of 54 tested. Devstral Small 1.1 scores 2/5, ranking 47th of 54. This is a meaningful gap — 5 vs 2 signals R1 generates substantially more original, feasible ideas in our testing.
- Strategic analysis: R1 scores 5/5 (tied for 1st of 54), while Devstral Small 1.1 scores 2/5 (rank 44 of 54). For nuanced tradeoff reasoning with real numbers, R1 is in a different tier.
- Agentic planning: R1 scores 4/5 (rank 16 of 54). Devstral Small 1.1 scores 2/5 and ranks 53rd of 54 — near the bottom of all tested models. Goal decomposition and failure recovery are clear R1 territory.
- Faithfulness: R1 scores 5/5 (tied for 1st of 55). Devstral Small 1.1 scores 4/5 (rank 34 of 55). R1 more reliably sticks to source material without hallucinating in our tests.
- Persona consistency: R1 scores 5/5 (tied for 1st of 53). Devstral Small 1.1 scores 2/5 (rank 51 of 53). Character maintenance and injection resistance are sharply different between these models.
- Multilingual: R1 scores 5/5 (tied for 1st of 55). Devstral Small 1.1 scores 4/5 (rank 36 of 55). Both are competent, but R1 edges ahead.
- Constrained rewriting: R1 scores 4/5 (rank 6 of 53, tied with 24 others). Devstral Small 1.1 scores 3/5 (rank 31 of 53).
Where Devstral Small 1.1 leads:
- Classification: Devstral Small 1.1 scores 4/5 (tied for 1st of 53 with 29 others). R1 scores 2/5 (rank 51 of 53, nearly last). For categorization and routing tasks, Devstral Small 1.1 is dramatically better.
- Safety calibration: Devstral Small 1.1 scores 2/5 (rank 12 of 55). R1 scores 1/5 (rank 32 of 55). Neither model excels here — the median across all tested models is 2/5 — but Devstral Small 1.1 is more calibrated in our testing.
Ties (identical scores):
- Structured output: Both score 4/5, both rank 26 of 54. JSON schema compliance is equivalent.
- Tool calling: Both score 4/5, both rank 18 of 54. Function selection and argument accuracy are matched.
- Long context: Both score 4/5, both rank 38 of 55. Retrieval at 30K+ tokens is equivalent.
External benchmarks (Epoch AI): R1 scores 93.1% on MATH Level 5 (rank 8 of 14 models with this score) and 53.3% on AIME 2025 (rank 17 of 23). No external benchmark scores are available for Devstral Small 1.1 in the payload. The AIME 2025 score of 53.3% sits below the median of 83.9% across models with that score in our dataset — R1's math olympiad performance is solid but not top-tier by that external measure. The MATH Level 5 score of 93.1% is close to the median of 94.15% for models with that benchmark.
Context window note: Devstral Small 1.1 supports a 131,072-token context window versus R1's 64,000 tokens — twice the context capacity, which may matter for very long document workflows even though both score identically on our 30K+ long-context test.
Pricing Analysis
R1 runs at $0.70/MTok input and $2.50/MTok output. Devstral Small 1.1 runs at $0.10/MTok input and $0.30/MTok output — roughly 7x cheaper on input and 8.3x cheaper on output. In practice: at 1M output tokens/month, you're paying $2,500 for R1 vs $300 for Devstral Small 1.1, a difference of $2,200. At 10M tokens, that gap is $22,000. At 100M tokens, you're looking at $220,000 more for R1. For tasks where the two models tie — structured output, tool calling, long context — the choice is straightforward: Devstral Small 1.1 delivers identical benchmark performance at a fraction of the price. Developers building high-volume classification pipelines or structured output workflows should run the numbers carefully before defaulting to R1.
Real-World Cost Comparison
Bottom Line
Choose R1 if your workload centers on creative problem solving, strategic analysis, agentic planning, faithfulness to source material, or persona-consistent deployments — areas where R1 scores 5/5 and Devstral Small 1.1 scores 2/5 in our testing. R1 is also the clear choice for multilingual applications and constrained rewriting. The cost premium is real, so reserve it for tasks where the quality gap matters.
Choose Devstral Small 1.1 if you're building classification pipelines, routing systems, structured output workflows, or any tool-calling application — it matches or beats R1 on all three of those while costing 8.3x less on output. Devstral Small 1.1 is also purpose-built for software engineering agents (developed with All Hands AI), so teams building coding agents should weigh that specialization. At high volume — 10M+ output tokens/month — the $22,000+ savings from choosing Devstral Small 1.1 for equivalent tasks is operationally significant. If your context needs exceed 64K tokens, Devstral Small 1.1's 131K window is also a practical advantage.
How We Test
We test every model against our 12-benchmark suite covering tool calling, agentic planning, creative problem solving, safety calibration, and more. Each test is scored 1–5 by an LLM judge. Read our full methodology.