Qwen2.5 Math 1.5B vs DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B: the real cost to run each

The honest, $0-markup cost to run Qwen2.5 Math 1.5B (Qwen, 1.5B) and DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B (deepseek-ai, 1.8B), side by side — free on your own machine, on your own rented GPU at the vendor's price, or via your own API key.

Qwen2.5 Math 1.5B vs DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B — cost comparison

Qwen2.5 Math 1.5BDeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B
Parameters1.5B1.8B
Context window4.1K131.1K
LicenseCommercial OKCommercial OK
VRAM to run~3.0 GB (Q4_K_M)~3.0 GB (Q4_K_M)
Rent a GPU$0.26/hr$0.26/hr
Your API key$0.11/1M (est.)$0.11/1M (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: Qwen2.5 Math 1.5B →
Full cost breakdown: DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B →

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

Spanvero · All comparisons · Prices as of 2026-06-17. $0 markup, your own accounts, we never resell compute. © 2026 Cynosure LLC.