Last updated: 2026-08-19
DeepSeek is a Chinese AI lab's family of open-weight, API-accessible large language models built on a Mixture-of-Experts design; its newest line, V4, ships as two general-availability models, V4-Pro (1.6 trillion parameters) and V4-Flash (284 billion), both aimed at coding, math, and multi-step agentic reasoning tasks.
About DeepSeek
DeepSeek is a Chinese AI company founded in 2023, backed by the quantitative hedge fund High-Flyer rather than outside venture capital. It builds large language models on a Mixture-of-Experts architecture, aiming to match GPT-4-class and Claude-class performance while training at a fraction of the typical budget for frontier labs.
Its current lineup runs from the reasoning-focused R1 model up through the newer V4 family, which reached general availability in July 2026 as two models: V4-Pro and V4-Flash. DeepSeek also ships DeepSeek Coder for programming tasks and DeepSeek VL for multimodal input, all available through a free web and mobile chat app or a metered API, with most model weights released under the MIT license for self-hosting and fine-tuning.
Pricing
Free tier: up to 1M input tokens/month + limited output. 19 per 1M tokens. Cache hit discounts (90% reduction) and off-peak pricing available.
Enterprise plans available with custom pricing starting ~$18,000/year for private deployment. V4 API pricing now uses peak/off-peak hours, with peak-hour rates double the off-peak rate; the legacy deepseek-chat and deepseek-reasoner model IDs were retired July 24, 2026.
| Tier | Monthly price | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek-V3.2 (General Chat) | Free | Pay-as-you-go token-based; 90% discount on cache hits; off-peak discounts available |
| DeepSeek-R1 (Reasoning Model) | Free | Pay-as-you-go token-based; separate pricing for reasoning vs. |
| DeepSeek Coder V2 | Free | Pay-as-you-go token-based; third-party provider pricing varies |
| Free Web/App Access | Free | Free tier: 1M input tokens/month limit on web/app, unlimited web browsing |
Key Features
- Advanced Mixture-of-Experts Architecture: 671B total parameters with 37B activated per token using the DeepSeekMoE framework, which keeps inference and training costs down while matching flagship-class benchmark performance from much larger dense models.
- Extended Context Windows: Supports 128K-164K token context windows enabling processing of full documents, codebases, and multi-turn conversations without truncation, with DeepSeek Sparse Attention optimizing long-sequence efficiency.
- Reasoning & Chain-of-Thought: Native support for extended thinking mode with chain-of-thought reasoning, verification patterns, and reflection capabilities built directly into R1 and the general-chat model line for complex problem-solving.
- Cost-Effective Token Pricing: Token-metered, pay-as-you-go API billing with cache-hit and off-peak rate discounts that undercut most closed frontier-class APIs on a per-token basis; exact current rates are in the cost FAQ.
- Open-Source & Commercial Use: MIT-licensed open-source model weights available on GitHub and Hugging Face for self-hosting, fine-tuning, and commercial deployment without licensing restrictions or vendor lock-in.
- DeepSeek V4 (General Availability): DeepSeek V4 exited preview into general availability on July 20, 2026, as a two-model family: V4-Pro (1.6T total, 49B active) and V4-Flash (284B total, 13B active), both with 1M-token context windows, plus stronger agentic, math, and code-generation performance over the April preview.
Pros
- Reviewers and cost-conscious teams consistently point to DeepSeek's per-token API pricing as the main reason to switch from GPT-4-class or Claude-class services.
- The 128K-token context window lets it process full codebases or long documents in a single pass, something shorter-context rivals still have to chunk.
- MIT licensing means teams can self-host, audit, or fine-tune the weights instead of depending on a single vendor's uptime and terms.
- Only 37 of its 671 billion parameters activate per token, which is why it can run inference at a fraction of the cost of similarly capable dense models.
Cons
- Knowledge cutoff limited to September 2025, lacking real-time information and current events awareness.
- Less aligned than frontier models on safety and jailbreak benchmarks per Microsoft research; requires content filtering for production.
- Reasoning models consume more tokens than competitors' implementations, reducing token efficiency despite lower per-token costs.
- Geopolitical constraints and data governance concerns as a Chinese company subject to local regulatory oversight.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are DeepSeek's pricing plans in 2026?
The web and mobile chat apps cost nothing. API access is metered: DeepSeek-V3.2 runs roughly $0.28 for a million input tokens and $0.42 for a million output tokens, while R1 costs $0.55 and $2.19 respectively, and a cache hit drops the input rate by 90%. Dedicated enterprise deployments are quoted separately, starting around $18,000 a year.
Does DeepSeek have a free plan?
Yes. The web and app chat interface is free with generous usage limits, and the API's free allowance covers up to 1 million input tokens a month with a limited amount of free output before metered billing kicks in.
What should you use instead of DeepSeek?
Qwen makes the most sense for Alibaba Cloud integration and native Chinese-language performance. Mistral Large 3 fits teams that specifically need Apache 2.0 licensing rather than MIT. Kimi K3 stands out for having the largest open-weight parameter count and the top score among open models on GPQA Diamond.
Is DeepSeek better than Qwen?
Both are Chinese-built, openly licensed models competing hard on cost, but they lean different ways. DeepSeek's reasoning and general-chat models push harder on math, coding, and multi-step reasoning benchmarks, while Qwen leans on deep Alibaba Cloud integration and stronger native Chinese-language handling. Teams already on Alibaba Cloud or serving Chinese-language users tend to pick Qwen; teams chasing the best reasoning-per-dollar tend to pick DeepSeek.
How do you set up DeepSeek?
Sign up free at chat.deepseek.com or the mobile app to try the models with no setup. For programmatic access, create an API key at platform.deepseek.com and point any OpenAI SDK-compatible client at DeepSeek's endpoint, since the API is a drop-in replacement for OpenAI's chat completions format. Full docs, quick-start guides, and the open-weight model files are linked from DeepSeek's GitHub and Hugging Face pages.
Top Alternatives
- Qwen: Coding benchmarks favor DeepSeek; Chinese-language handling and the Alibaba ecosystem favor Qwen.
- Mistral Large 3: Cheaper API pricing keeps DeepSeek ahead; Apache 2.0 weights instead of MIT keep Mistral Large 3 in the running.
- Kimi K3: DeepSeek wins on lower per-token cost. Kimi K3 wins on the larger open-weight parameter count and top open GPQA score.
HokAI guides covering DeepSeek
- Best AI for Coding Questions Free in 2026: 8 Real Options, Compared: Which free AI actually answers coding questions well in 2026? DeepSeek, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Qwen, all researched and compared side by side today.
- What Qwen Is Actually For, Now It's Priced Below Claude and GPT-5.6: Alibaba priced Qwen3.8-Max at $2/$6 per million tokens, beating Claude and GPT-5.6, but its benchmarks are self-reported and the open-weights license isn't out.
- Gemini Hit a Billion Users. Then Google Shipped a Different One.: Gemini crossed 1 billion users on 11 August 2026. Two days later Google launched a cheaper Gemini for coding and agents, plus Labs apps few have opened.
- Best AI Chatbots in 2026: Pick by the Job, Not the Leaderboard: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Mistral's Vibe, Poe and Character.ai compared on price and actual job fit, not raw model rank, with a decision table and 2026 pricing.
- Cursor Composer 2.5 vs. Claude Code: Which AI Coding Agent Should You Use in 2026?: Cursor Composer 2.5 vs Claude Code compared on 2026 pricing, benchmarks, and context windows now that Claude Code defaults to Sonnet 5 and Opus 5, not Opus 4.6.
- How to Choose the Right LLM: A Practical Guide to GPT, Claude, Gemini, Llama, DeepSeek, and Perplexity: Choosing an LLM in August 2026 means new GPT-5.6 pricing, an expiring Claude Sonnet 5 discount, and Meta exiting open-weight models. This guide has the numbers.