DeepSeek V3 API Pricing
DeepSeek · context window 164K · prices updated 2026-09-29
Where DeepSeek V3 sits on price
At $1.03 per million output tokens, DeepSeek V3 is a mid tier model — 2.1× cheaper than the median output price of $2.20, which puts it cheaper than 67% and pricier than 33% of the models we track. It sits 9th cheapest of the 15 DeepSeek models we track. Output costs 4.0× input, the usual spread — trim both, starting with the answer length.
What real workloads cost on DeepSeek V3
These three workloads are the ones teams actually run on a mid-priced model — a $1.03/1M model is not bought for the same job as one ten times the price.
| Workload | Per request | Per month |
|---|---|---|
| Support chatbot — 500 conversations/day (5K in / 1.4K out) Conversation history re-sent each turn — the classic prompt-caching win. | $0.0027 | $40.91 |
| Document pipeline — 10K docs/day (3K in / 500 out) Batch-friendly: no user waiting, so a ~50% batch discount usually applies. | $0.0013 | $386 |
| Small app — 1K requests/day (500 in / 150 out) The baseline most side projects actually run at. | $0.0003 | $8.49 |
Model your exact traffic in the API cost calculator — it preloads DeepSeek V3 with caching and batch options.
DeepSeek V3 price history
DeepSeek last raised DeepSeek V3's output price on Sep 28, 2026 (+16% per output token), from $0.32/$0.89 to $0.2574/$1.03 per 1M in/out. That is one of 4 repricings in the 58 days we have tracked it — worth knowing before you hard-code today's rate into a budget.
| Date | Input /1M | Output /1M | Output change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 2, 2026 (tracking began) | $0.2574 | $1.03 | — |
| Sep 3, 2026 | $0.32 | $0.89 | -13% |
| Sep 10, 2026 | $0.2574 | $1.03 | +16% |
| Sep 18, 2026 | $0.32 | $0.89 | -13% |
| Sep 28, 2026 | $0.2574 | $1.03 | +16% |
Change-points from our daily price snapshots (tracking since Aug 2, 2026; intraday moves between snapshots are not captured).
DeepSeek V3 vs Qwen2.5 VL 72B Instruct
The closest-priced alternative from another vendor is Qwen2.5 VL 72B Instruct (Alibaba (Qwen)) — 3% cheaper on output, with $0.5426 more per million input tokens. When two models land this close on price, the decision is quality on your own workload, not the price sheet: run 50 real requests through both and compare.
See Qwen2.5 VL 72B Instruct pricing →Cheaper alternatives
More DeepSeek models
Frequently asked questions
› How much does the DeepSeek V3 API cost?
DeepSeek V3 costs $0.2574 per million input tokens and $1.03 per million output tokens and no discounted cached-input tier. That works out to roughly 972,101 output tokens per dollar.
› What does the support chatbot workload cost on DeepSeek V3?
Support chatbot — 500 conversations/day (5K in / 1.4K out) costs about $0.0027 per request and $40.91 per month on DeepSeek V3. Conversation history re-sent each turn — the classic prompt-caching win.
› What does it cost to fill DeepSeek V3's 164K context window?
Sending 164K of input in a single request costs $0.0422 at $0.2574 per million tokens — before any output. There is no cached-input tier on this model, so every repeat of that context is billed at full price. This is why large context windows are cheap to advertise and expensive to actually use.
› Is DeepSeek V3 worth the price?
DeepSeek V3 sits in the middle of the market (9 of 15 by price within DeepSeek). The honest test is a routing experiment: send the same 200 real requests to this model and to a tier below, and compare failure rate against the price gap — most teams find a majority of traffic never needed the pricier model.