DeepSeek API API Pricing & Free Tier 2026
Verified May 14, 2026DeepSeek API provides China's top open-source LLMs — DeepSeek-V3, DeepSeek-Coder, etc.; known for extreme cost-effectiveness + open-source strategy + inference performance.
Free tier
No persistent free tier as of 2026 — pay-per-token billing only. Promotional credit campaigns appear intermittently.
No persistent free tier as of 2026; pay-per-token billing only. Promotional credit campaigns appear intermittently.
Per-model pricing
| Model | Context | Input $/1M | Output $/1M | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek-Chat | 128K | $0.14 | $0.28 | General-purpose chat (V3 series) |
| DeepSeek-Reasoner | 64K | $0.55 | $2.19 | R1 reasoning model with chain-of-thought |
vs Global rivals
- DeepSeek-Chat vs GPT-4o (openai)DeepSeek-Chat costs ~2-5% of GPT-4o while matching it on code and math tasks.
- DeepSeek-Reasoner vs o1-mini (openai)DeepSeek-Reasoner runs at ~18% of o1-mini pricing with comparable reasoning depth.
Rate limits & access
Rate limit: 60 RPM default; pay-tier scales higher.
API endpoints are OpenAI-compatible. Cache discount applies to repeat-prefix inputs.
FAQ
- Is DeepSeek-V3 really 30x cheaper than GPT-4o?
- Yes. MoE architecture + inference optimization makes per-call cost extremely low. Quality near but slightly weaker than GPT-4o; cost-effectiveness unbeatable.
- Is DeepSeek-R1 stronger than o1?
- Some benchmarks approach o1, some exceed. Fully open + 1/30 price; one of biggest LLM news of 2024.
Prices in USD. Some providers (DashScope, Doubao) bill in CNY; figures shown at ~7.2 CNY/USD reference rate. Verify on the provider's official page before procurement.