AI Writing
DeepSeek Review
Chinese AI lab's free chat app and very cheap API, with strong reasoning and coding models.
Frontier-adjacent intelligence for free, with the API priced like a rounding error. The catch is where your words go: DeepSeek stores them in China, and several governments have banned it from official devices. Fine for public problems; keep the secrets for someone else.
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| Best for | Developers who need cheap API tokens at scale, Math, reasoning and coding questions on a zero budget, Self-hosting, using DeepSeek's openly released model weights |
|---|---|
| Pricing model | freemium |
| Starting price | Free |
| Free plan | Yes |
| Last verified | October 11, 2026 |
DeepSeek pricing (2026)
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Chat app | Free | Web, iOS and Android chat; Thinking mode, web search and file uploads; V4-Pro available through Expert Mode |
| API: deepseek-flash | $0.30 in / $1.20 out per 1M tokens Peak rates; off-peak is half ($0.15 / $0.60) | DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash with 1M context and vision; Cache hits from $0.003 per 1M input tokens |
| API: deepseek-v4-pro | $1.32 in / $3.96 out per 1M tokens Peak rates; off-peak is half ($0.66 / $1.98) | DeepSeek-V4-Pro with 1M context; Cache hits from $0.022 per 1M input tokens |
API prices are per million tokens. Peak hours are 01:00-04:00 and 06:00-10:00 UTC on weekdays; everything else is billed at half price. DeepSeek says prices may change. Its privacy policy says personal data is collected, processed and stored in the People's Republic of China.
Is DeepSeek free?
Yes. The DeepSeek chat app on web, iOS and Android is free with no paid consumer tier. Only the developer API costs money, billed per token.
Prices in USD, last checked October 11, 2026. Vendors change plans often, so confirm on the official DeepSeek pricing page.
What DeepSeek does
- Free chat app with thinking mode
- Web search and file uploads
- 1M-token context on current API models
- Very low per-token API pricing with off-peak discounts
- Open-weight models you can run yourself
Why the Overlord approves
- Free app with no paid tier to upsell you
- API is a fraction of the price of US rivals
- Strong at reasoning and code for the money
Where it disappoints
- Data is stored in China, which rules it out for many workplaces
- Banned on government devices in several places, including Australia, South Korea, Taiwan, Texas and US federal agencies; Italy's regulator blocked it
- Hosted versions avoid or deflect topics sensitive to the Chinese government
- Fewer extras than ChatGPT: no image generation or big plugin ecosystem
DeepSeek alternatives
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DeepSeek head-to-heads
Questions the Humans Keep Asking
Is DeepSeek free?
Yes. The DeepSeek chat app on web, iOS and Android is free with no paid consumer tier. Only the developer API costs money, billed per token.
How much does DeepSeek cost?
DeepSeek plans: API: deepseek-v4-pro $1.32 in / $3.96 out per 1M tokens. API prices are per million tokens. Peak hours are 01:00-04:00 and 06:00-10:00 UTC on weekdays; everything else is billed at half price. DeepSeek says prices may change. Its privacy policy says personal data is collected, processed and stored in the People's Republic of China.