{"rid":"compute/deepseek-api","card":{"rid":"compute/deepseek-api","eid":"deepseek","topic":"compute","slug":"deepseek-api","provider":"DeepSeek API","url":"https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing/","domain":"deepseek.com","category":"inference API","tier":null,"verdict":"paid-only","vorder":3,"grp":"paid","confidence":"documented","binding":"volume-quota","identity_kind":"email","identity_basis":"stated","needs_card":0,"needs_phone":0,"needs_id":0,"needs_institution":0,"country":null,"crypto":null,"interfaces":null,"egress_metered":null,"per_object_bytes":null,"retention_days":null,"verified_at":"2026-10-22T00:00:00.000Z","verified_basis":"live","checked_on":"2026-10-22","stale_on":"2026-11-21","n_evidence":3,"usd_month":null,"usd_per_tb_month":null,"summary":"No free grant on the vendor's own pricing page. deepseek-flash is USD 0.15 per 1M input tokens on a cache miss and USD 0.60 per 1M output off-peak, doubling ...","duplicate_of":null,"n_unknown":10},"record":{"topic":"compute","slug":"deepseek-api","provider":"DeepSeek API","url":"https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing/","category":"inference API","free_tier":{"stated":"No free grant on the vendor's own pricing page. deepseek-flash is USD 0.15 per 1M input tokens on a cache miss and USD 0.60 per 1M output off-peak, doubling at peak; cache hits cost USD 0.003 per 1M off-peak. The concurrency limit is 2,500 for deepseek-flash and 500 for deepseek-v4-pro, at account level, and 'There is no additional cost for capacity expansion'. Context is 1M tokens with 384K maximum output.","unit":"none","metered_on":"wall-clock","source_url":"https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing/","read_on":"2026-10-22","notes":"none"},"per_object_cap":{"stated":"not applicable","bytes":null,"source_url":"https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing/","notes":null},"retention":{"stated":"not applicable","days":null,"source_url":"https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing/","notes":null},"egress":{"terms":"not stated","metered":false,"free_allowance":null,"price_per_tb":null,"source_url":"https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing/"},"interface":["unknown"],"interface_detail":"inferred from the tooling the provider documents; not probed","tooling":"not stated","chaining":"the off-peak window is the chain that matters: at USD 0.15 per 1M input and 2,500 concurrency a weekend batch is the cheapest job in this class and needs no free tier at all.","limits":[{"kind":"volume-quota","value":"nothing binds but the balance: 2,500 concurrent requests is the highest concurrency in this class, about eight times Cloudflare's 300 requests a minute, so the only ceiling is the prepaid balance and USD 0.15 per 1M input makes a large job cheap rather than free.","source":"https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing/"}],"limits_note":"nothing binds but the balance: 2,500 concurrent requests is the highest concurrency in this class, about eight times Cloudflare's 300 requests a minute, so the only ceiling is the prepaid balance and USD 0.15 per 1M input makes a large job cheap rather than free.","binding":"volume-quota","binding_note":"nothing binds but the balance: 2,500 concurrent requests is the highest concurrency in this class, about eight times Cloudflare's 300 requests a minute, so the only ceiling is the prepaid balance and USD 0.15 per 1M input makes a large job cheap rather than free.","identity_cost":{"kind":"email","detail":null,"country":null},"reliability_note":"no reliability event recorded","confidence":"documented","evidence":[{"url":"https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing/","date":"2026-10-22","proved":"'1M INPUT TOKENS (CACHE MISS) OFF-PEAK $0.15 PEAK $0.3' and '1M OUTPUT TOKENS OFF-PEAK $0.6 PEAK $1.2' for deepseek-flash, quoted"},{"url":"https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/rate_limit/","date":"2026-10-22","proved":"'Concurrency Limit 2500' for deepseek-flash, 'calculated at the account level', quoted"},{"url":"https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing/","date":"2026-10-22","proved":"peak hours are '01:00 - 04:00 and 06:00 - 10:00 UTC, Monday through Friday', so every other hour including weekends is off-peak, quoted"}],"verdict":"paid-only","verified_at":"2026-10-22T00:00:00.000Z","notes":"Arithmetic, labelled estimate: a 100M-input-token batch at the off-peak cache-miss rate is USD 15 and finishes in hours at 2,500 concurrent requests, where Groq's 200K TPD free lane would need 500 days for the same input. The free 5M-token signup grant that tutorials still describe does not appear on the vendor's pricing page, which prices every model and names no grant; a third-party test on 2026-08-31 reported granted_balance 0.00 and a 402 on the first call, which is reported and not my measurement. Identity on the international lane is an email address.","extras":{"wave2":{"class":"cheapest-paid","free_tier_kind":"none","shape":{"vcpu":null,"ram_gib":null,"gpu_class":null,"gpu_count":null}}}},"claims":[{"path":"$.free_tier.stated","kind":"free-quota","num":null,"unit":null,"per":null,"currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"unparsed"},{"path":"$.limits[0].value","kind":"limit:volume-quota","num":300,"unit":"requests","per":"minute","currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"ok"}],"unknown":[["$.egress.metered","egress-unknown"],["$.egress.terms","not-stated"],["$.identity_cost.detail","process"],["$.interface","interface-unknown"],["$.per_object_cap.notes","process"],["$.per_object_cap.stated","not-applicable"],["$.reliability_note","none-observed"],["$.retention.notes","process"],["$.retention.stated","not-applicable"],["$.tooling","not-stated"]],"history":[],"drift":[]}