deepseek-v3 pricing

deepseek-v3 is priced at $0.15 per 1M input tokens and $0.30 per 1M output tokens, with roughly 220 ms to first token and about 60 tokens/sec output throughput.

Price per 1M tokens

Input $0.15 · Output $0.30 · Output/input ratio 2.0x.

  • 1M input + 1M output tokens: $0.45
  • 10M input + 2M output tokens/month: $2.10
  • 100M input + 20M output tokens/month: $21.00

Cheaper alternatives to deepseek-v3

Same workload, lower output price. Validate quality before switching.

  • deepseek-v4 — $0.22/1M output (27% cheaper)
  • llama-4-scout — $0.20/1M output (33% cheaper)
  • phi-4-mini — $0.20/1M output (33% cheaper)
  • gemini-2.5-flash-lite — $0.15/1M output (50% cheaper)

How much are you wasting on deepseek-v3?

Price lists are the easy part. Run the free waste scanner on your usage export to see which calls should have run on a cheaper tier, which prompts are oversized, and which retries you paid for twice — with dollars recoverable per finding.