R1 vs GPT-5.2

Summary of our 12-test suite (in our testing unless noted):

• Wins and ties: GPT-5.2 wins 4 tests (classification, long_context, safety_calibration, agentic_planning) and ties with R1 on 8 tests (structured_output, strategic_analysis, constrained_rewriting, creative_problem_solving, tool_calling, faithfulness, persona_consistency, multilingual). R1 has no solo wins.
• Classification: R1 scored 2 vs GPT-5.2 4 in our tests. GPT-5.2 is tied for 1st of 53 models on classification; R1 is rank 51 of 53. Practical impact: GPT-5.2 is far safer and more accurate for routing, moderation and label-heavy workflows.
• Long context: R1 4 vs GPT-5.2 5. GPT-5.2 is tied for 1st of 55 on long_context; R1 sits at rank 38 of 55. For retrieval/summary at 30K+ tokens, GPT-5.2 is the better choice.
• Safety calibration: R1 1 vs GPT-5.2 5. GPT-5.2 is tied for 1st of 55; R1 ranks 32 of 55. R1’s low score indicates it will more frequently fail safety gating and content refusal tests in our suite.
• Agentic planning: R1 4 vs GPT-5.2 5. GPT-5.2 is tied for 1st on agentic_planning; R1 ranks 16 of 54. This matters for multi-step agents and robust failure recovery.
• Ties (practical parity): structured_output (both 4), strategic_analysis (both 5, tied for 1st), constrained_rewriting (both 4), creative_problem_solving (both 5), tool_calling (both 4), faithfulness (both 5), persona_consistency (both 5), multilingual (both 5). For many UI copy, persona-driven chat, and creative ideation tasks R1 matches GPT-5.2 in our tests.
• External benchmarks (Epoch AI): On AIME 2025 GPT-5.2 scores 96.1% vs R1 53.3% (Epoch AI). On MATH Level 5 R1 scores 93.1% (Epoch AI); GPT-5.2 does not have a MATH Level 5 entry in the payload. For real competitive math tasks, GPT-5.2 dominates AIME in Epoch AI results while R1 shows strength on MATH Level 5.
• SWE-bench (Epoch AI): GPT-5.2 scores 73.8% on SWE-bench Verified and ranks 5 of 12; R1 has no SWE-bench entry in the payload. If your primary need is GitHub-issue-level coding benchmarks, GPT-5.2 has the external result to reference.
• Practical takeaway: GPT-5.2 is clearly superior for safety-first production agents, classification/multimodal pipelines and extremely long-context workflows. R1 is a cost-efficient alternative that preserves high scores on faithfulness, persona consistency and creative problem solving but performs poorly on safety calibration and classification in our tests.
• Implementation notes from the payload: R1 uses reasoning tokens and requires higher min/max completion tokens; GPT-5.2 supports text+image+file inputs and a 400,000 token context window, which explains its long-context and multimodal advantages.

Pricing per mTok (as provided): R1 input $0.70 + output $2.50 = $3.20 per mTok; GPT-5.2 input $1.75 + output $14.00 = $15.75 per mTok. Assumption: 1 mTok = 1,000 tokens and input/output tokens are equal. At 1M tokens/month (1,000 mTok) the monthly bill is about $3,200 (R1) vs $15,750 (GPT-5.2). At 10M tokens/month it's ~$32,000 vs ~$157,500; at 100M tokens/month it's ~$320,000 vs ~$1,575,000. The priceRatio in the payload is 0.1786: R1 costs ~17.9% of GPT-5.2 per mTok. Who should care: high-volume products, API-first startups, and cost-sensitive research projects will save materially with R1; buyers valuing top-tier safety, long-context and agentic planning should budget for GPT-5.2.

Choose R1 if: you need a much lower unit cost (R1 combined $3.20 per mTok), want strong persona consistency, faithfulness and creative outputs, and can accept weaker safety and classification performance. Good for high-volume chatbots, multilingual content generation and cost-sensitive production. Choose GPT-5.2 if: you need top-tier safety calibration, robust classification, best-in-class long-context handling and agentic planning (GPT-5.2 wins those tests in our suite), or you must pass external benchmarks like AIME 2025 (GPT-5.2 96.1% per Epoch AI). Budget accordingly — GPT-5.2’s combined unit price is $15.75 per mTok.