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DeepSeek

Frontier-level open models at the lowest prices in the market

4.6
AI Chat & Assistant Free plan Paid from API from $0.15 per 1M input tokens (off-peak) Web App, iOS, Android, API
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DeepSeek is the Chinese AI lab whose R1 release in early 2025 reset expectations for what open models cost. The current generation pairs DeepSeek-V4-Pro for frontier reasoning with DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash (vision-capable), both with 1M-token context windows and off-peak API pricing at roughly half of peak rates.

The chat app at chat.deepseek.com stays free with full model access, thinking mode and web search. Developers get an OpenAI-compatible API (plus an Anthropic-format endpoint), 25-hour off-peak windows and concurrency up to 2,500 – the reason DeepSeek remains the default price-performance benchmark every other lab is compared against.

Key Features

  • DeepSeek-V4-Pro and V4.1-Flash models
  • 1M-token context, 384K max output
  • Thinking mode for reasoning tasks
  • Vision input on Flash models
  • Off-peak API pricing at half rate
  • OpenAI and Anthropic compatible APIs

Pros

  • Cheapest frontier-class API on the market
  • Open weights for self-hosting
  • Genuinely capable free chat app with no throttling

Cons

  • Data is stored on servers in China
  • No voice mode or image generation in the chat app
  • Off-peak discounts require scheduling batch jobs

Our Verdict

Unbeatable value for developers and researchers - if data residency is not a blocker, nothing else comes close on price.

Chat app

$0 / month
  • Full model access
  • Thinking mode
  • Web search
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API (Flash)

$0.15 / 1M input tokens
  • Off-peak rate
  • Vision support
  • 1M context
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API (V4-Pro)

$0.66 / 1M input tokens
  • Off-peak rate
  • Frontier reasoning
  • 384K output
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