DeepSeek
DeepSeek API
DeepSeek V4 — frontier reasoning at a fraction of Western frontier token prices.
2
models in the line
DeepSeek V4 comes in two tiers, and the reason to look at them is price. Pro is a frontier reasoning model at an input price below most other vendors' cheap tiers, and Flash sits an order of magnitude below that again. Cache reads are the standout number: on Flash they are priced at roughly a three-hundredth of fresh input, the most aggressive caching discount in the catalog.
At a glance
- From
- 0.23 coins / 1M tokens
Models in this family
| Model | From | Modes | Open |
|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek V4 FlashFast, very low cost DeepSeek tier for high-volume classification, extraction and chat. | 0.23 coins/ 1M tokens | — | OpenDocs |
| DeepSeek V4 ProDeepSeek's frontier reasoning model. Strong at maths, coding and long analytical chains at a fraction of Western frontier pricing. | 0.6 coins/ 1M tokens | — | OpenDocs |
Pricing
| Model | Option | Price |
|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | input | 0.23 coins/ 1M tokens |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | output | 0.691 coins/ 1M tokens |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | cacheRead | 0.0008 coins/ 1M tokens |
| DeepSeek V4 Pro | input | 0.6 coins/ 1M tokens |
| DeepSeek V4 Pro | output | 1.8 coins/ 1M tokens |
| DeepSeek V4 Pro | cacheRead | 0.02 coins/ 1M tokens |
Which one to pick
DeepSeek V4 Flash
High-volume classification, extraction and chat where per-token cost dominates the decision.
DeepSeek V4 Pro
Maths, coding and long analytical chains — frontier reasoning without frontier pricing.
Strengths
- The cheapest frontier-class reasoning in the catalog on a per-token basis.
- Cache reads on Flash are priced at a rounding error, which makes long fixed prompts almost free to reuse.
- Output is only three times input on both tiers, a narrower ratio than the GPT or Claude lines.
- OpenAI-protocol compatible, so it drops into existing code.
Limitations
- Only two tiers, with no mid-range option between them.
- Cache writes are not priced separately here, so caching economics differ from the GPT line.
- Text-only — no image input in this family.
The vendor's own description of this line: DeepSeek — API docs