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DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B vs DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 7B: the real cost to run each

The honest, $0-markup cost to run DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B (deepseek-ai, 1.8B) and DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 7B (deepseek-ai, 7.6B), side by side — free on your own machine, on your own rented GPU at the vendor's price, or via your own API key.

DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B vs DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 7B — cost comparison

DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5BDeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 7B
Parameters1.8B7.6B
Context window131.1K131.1K
LicenseCommercial OKCommercial OK
VRAM to run✓ ~3.0 GB (Q4_K_M)~7.0 GB (Q4_K_M)
Rent a GPU$0.06/hr$0.06/hr
Your API key✓ $0.11/1M (est.)$0.16/1M (est.)

Which should you pick?

VRAM, size, context and license are facts from the catalog and the shared cost engine; API prices are real where we have them (labeled "est." otherwise). We don't rank model quality or quote benchmarks here.

Full cost breakdown: DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B →
Full cost breakdown: DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 7B →

Open the free Spanvero advisor → to compare them live for your exact workload and hardware.

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Spanvero · All comparisons · Prices as of 2026-07-06. $0 markup, your own accounts, we never resell compute. © 2026 Cynosure LLC.

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