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DeepSeek API costs Free to $0.87 per month as of May 2026, with 3 plans available including a free tier. Pricing depends on your chosen tier, contract length, and negotiated discounts.

Use the interactive pricing calculator to estimate your exact cost based on team size and requirements.

  • Free tier: Yes

DeepSeek API offers 3 pricing tiers: Free Trial Credits, DeepSeek V4-Flash (Pay-as-you-go), DeepSeek V4-Pro (Pay-as-you-go). The DeepSeek V4-Flash (Pay-as-you-go) plan is most code generation tasks at the lowest per-token cost.

Compared to other code generation apis software, DeepSeek API is positioned at the budget-friendly price point.

How much does DeepSeek API cost?

DeepSeek API offers 3 pricing plans, starting with a free tier and scaling to custom enterprise pricing. Plans include Free Trial Credits (free), DeepSeek V4-Flash (Pay-as-you-go) (custom pricing), DeepSeek V4-Pro (Pay-as-you-go) (custom pricing).

DeepSeek API Pricing Overview

DeepSeek API has 3 pricing plans, including a free tier. Paid plans range from $0 to $0.87/month. The Free Trial Credits plan is free and is best for new users evaluating the api before topping up a balance. The DeepSeek V4-Flash (Pay-as-you-go) plan requires contacting sales for a custom quote and is designed for most code generation tasks at the lowest per-token cost. The DeepSeek V4-Pro (Pay-as-you-go) plan requires contacting sales for a custom quote and is designed for complex reasoning and flagship-level coding performance.

This pricing was last verified in May 30, 2026 from 1 independent sources.

DeepSeek API provides access to DeepSeek's code-optimized and reasoning models via a pay-per-token REST API compatible with the OpenAI SDK. The current flagship models are DeepSeek V4-Flash (fast, low-cost) and DeepSeek V4-Pro (higher capability), replacing the legacy deepseek-chat and deepseek-coder endpoints. Pricing is among the most competitive in the code generation API space, with V4-Flash input tokens starting at $0.14 per million. Context caching delivers up to 10x discounts on repeated prompt segments. New accounts receive 5 million free trial tokens with no credit card required.

How DeepSeek API Pricing Compares

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All DeepSeek API Plans & Pricing

Plan Monthly Annual Best For
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Free Trial Credits

  • 5 million free tokens on signup
  • No credit card required
  • Access to all models including deepseek-v4-flash
  • Credits apply automatically to usage

DeepSeek V4-Flash (Pay-as-you-go)

  • $0.14/M input tokens (cache miss)
  • $0.0028/M input tokens (cache hit)
  • $0.28/M output tokens
  • Non-thinking and thinking modes available
  • 1M context length, 384K max output
  • Replaces legacy deepseek-chat endpoint

DeepSeek V4-Pro (Pay-as-you-go)

  • $0.435/M input tokens (cache miss)
  • $0.003625/M input tokens (cache hit)
  • $0.87/M output tokens
  • Full context caching for large cache-hit discounts
  • Higher capability flagship model
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Compare DeepSeek API vs Alternatives

Before committing to DeepSeek API, compare pricing with these 3 alternatives in the same category.

All DeepSeek API alternatives & migration guides

How DeepSeek API Pricing Compares

Software Starting Price Top Price
DeepSeek API Free $0.87/month
Codestral API $0.2/per million tokens $0.9/per million tokens
Refact.ai Free $10/per user per month
Tabby Free $19/per user per month

DeepSeek API Pricing FAQ

01 How much does DeepSeek API cost?

DeepSeek's API uses pay-per-token pricing. DeepSeek V4-Flash costs $0.14 per million input tokens and $0.28 per million output tokens (cache-miss rates). DeepSeek V4-Pro costs $0.435/M input and $0.87/M output tokens.

02 Does DeepSeek offer a free tier for the API?

Yes. New users receive 5 million free tokens upon registration with no credit card required. These credits apply automatically across all models including V4-Flash and V4-Pro. After credits are exhausted, usage is billed at standard pay-per-token rates.

03 What happened to the deepseek-coder model endpoint?

The legacy deepseek-chat and deepseek-coder endpoint names now route to DeepSeek V4-Flash (non-thinking mode). DeepSeek plans to retire these legacy endpoint names on July 24, 2026. Developers should migrate to the deepseek-v4-flash or deepseek-v4-pro model identifiers directly.

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