DeepSeek V3 API Pricing
DeepSeek · Budget · Apache 2.0 · released 2024-12. Prices in USD per 1 million tokens. Data snapshot: 2026-09-29.
The price we publish for DeepSeek V3 has changed 4 times since 2026-08-15, most recently on 2026-09-28 when the reference host changed (+10.9%); it is now the 100th cheapest of 143 Budget models. Buying from DeepInfra rather than at the rate quoted here lowers the token price by about 10%, for a quantized fp4 build. No Arena score is published for it, so it carries no Efficiency score and cannot hold the FinOps Friendly badge.
- Input: $0.26 per 1M tokens
- Output: $1.03 per 1M tokens
- Batch API (input/output): not published
- Prompt-cache read: not published
- Context window: 164K
- AWS Bedrock regions: ap-northeast-1, us-east-1, us-east-2, us-west-2
DeepSeek V3 market position
On blended price ($0.797 per 1M tokens at 30% input, 70% output) it is cheaper than 30% of Budget models: 100th cheapest of 143. Across every category it is cheaper than 65% of priced text models in the catalogue: 100th cheapest of 283.
DeepSeek V3 licence, size and capabilities
DeepSeek V3 is open source: its weights are published under Apache 2.0, an OSI-approved licence with no field-of-use limit, so it can be self-hosted as well as bought by the token. Its parameter count is not published. Listed capabilities: Text, Code, Agents. Filling its 164K context window once costs $0.04 in input tokens at list price.
Monthly cost at 100K requests, by business use case
From the after-discounts figure (prompt caching on the cached input share, batch API for async workloads, only where the provider publishes those rates), which assumes you implement both, to the list price. One figure means no discount is published.
| Use case | Tokens (in/out) | Monthly (after discounts – list) |
|---|---|---|
| Support Ticket | 1,500 / 500 | $90 |
| Knowledge Q&A | 2,000 / 800 | $134 |
| Meeting Summary | 10,000 / 1,200 | $381 |
| Marketing Content | 2,500 / 1,800 | $250 |
| Coding Task | 3,000 / 2,000 | $283 |
| Invoice Processing | 1,500 / 600 | $100 |
| Call Summary | 2,000 / 700 | $123 |
| Agent Workflow | 6,000 / 3,000 | $463 |
DeepSeek V3 pricing by host
A host is a company that runs the model and sells it by the token — the lab that made it, a cloud platform like Amazon Bedrock, Azure or Vertex, or an independent provider. One model, several sellers, and often several prices. This model is sold by 2 different hosts. The price quoted above is the one we publish so that models stay comparable; it is not necessarily the cheapest way to buy this model. List prices as published on 2026-09-29 via OpenRouter — negotiated rates, committed-use discounts and provisioned capacity are not shown.
Cheapest host: DeepInfra at $0.32 input / $0.89 output per 1M tokens, 10% below the price we publish on a blended basis (30% input, 70% output). It serves a quantized fp4 build, which is not the same product as the full-precision model. The dearest, StreamLake, charges 1.1x the cheapest.
| Host | Input $/1M | Output $/1M |
|---|---|---|
| DeepInfra — fp4 | $0.32 | $0.89 |
| StreamLake (the price shown above) | $0.26 | $1.03 |
DeepSeek V3 price history
DeepSeek V3 has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $0.26 input / $1.03 output per 1M tokens. The price we publish has changed 4 times since then, every time through a change of reference host rather than a repricing. The latest change, on 2026-09-28, was +10.9% on the blended price (30% input, 70% output), to $0.26 input / $1.03 output (reference host changed, not a repricing). Net of all changes, the blended price is back where it started on 2026-08-15.
| Date | Old price (in / out) | New price (in / out) | Blended change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-28 | $0.32 / $0.89 | $0.26 / $1.03 | +10.9% (reference host changed, not a repricing) |
| 2026-09-18 | $0.26 / $1.03 | $0.32 / $0.89 | -9.8% (reference host changed, not a repricing) |
| 2026-09-11 | $0.32 / $0.89 | $0.26 / $1.03 | +10.9% (reference host changed, not a repricing) |
| 2026-09-03 | $0.26 / $1.03 | $0.32 / $0.89 | -9.8% (reference host changed, not a repricing) |
Alternatives to DeepSeek V3
- Next cheaper Budget model: Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B (Alibaba) at $0.790 blended, 1% less.
- Next more expensive: MiniMax-01 (MiniMax) at $0.830 blended, 4% more.
Common questions about DeepSeek V3 pricing
- How much does DeepSeek V3 cost?
- DeepSeek V3 costs $0.26 per million input tokens and $1.03 per million output tokens on the API.
- Does DeepSeek V3 offer batch or cached pricing?
- No batch or cache pricing is published for this model.
- What would DeepSeek V3 cost per month?
- For a support-ticket workload (1,500 input + 500 output tokens per request) at 100K requests/month, DeepSeek V3 costs about $90 at list prices.
- Has the price of DeepSeek V3 changed?
- DeepSeek V3 has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $0.26 input / $1.03 output per 1M tokens. The price we publish has changed 4 times since then, every time through a change of reference host rather than a repricing. The latest change, on 2026-09-28, was +10.9% on the blended price (30% input, 70% output), to $0.26 input / $1.03 output (reference host changed, not a repricing). Net of all changes, the blended price is back where it started on 2026-08-15.
These are list prices: real cost also depends on caching, batching, negotiated discounts, marketplace agreements, and existing contracts. Get a FinOps review from OptimNow or compare all models.
Build the business case for DeepSeek V3 in the AI ROI Calculator: add your business value on top of these costs to get ROI, break-even and payback.
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