The Chinese AI that rattled Wall Street: free, open and dirt-cheap for developers, with privacy small print.
Free plan
✓ Yes
Price
Free · API from $0.15/M tokens
Plans and pricing
Web chat and app€0
API · deepseek-flash (V4.1-Flash)$0.30 / $1.20 per million tokens (input / output, peak)
API · deepseek-v4-pro$1.32 / $3.96 per million tokens (peak)
API · Search / Fetch$0.75 per 1,000 requests
AIAO score
96/100
Member rating
Not enough ratings yet
Languages
No verified data
Where to use it
Web, iOS, Android and API; DeepSeek Harness (developer preview).
Pros
Free web chat and apps, no subscription.
Open weights under the MIT licence: run it on your own server without sending anything to China.
One of the cheapest APIs: Flash at $0.30 / $1.20 per million tokens at peak and half off-peak.
1M-token context and an API compatible with OpenAI and Anthropic formats.
Cons
Sensitive privacy: data in China and no simple training toggle.
Censorship on sensitive political topics.
Regulatory blocks and complaints (Italy, Germany, consumer groups) and very fast model changes in the API.
Use cases
Developers and companies wanting a powerful API at the lowest cost; students and curious users who want a free assistant for non-sensitive data; teams that prefer to deploy an open model on their own infrastructure.
If you use the API for long jobs (summarising hundreds of documents, batch translation), schedule them off-peak and pay half. For personal or company data, run the open model locally or with a European provider.
Privacy and data
Its policy (February 2026) says data is collected and stored in China and what you type may be used for training; opting out is by email and there is an EU representative. Alternative: its open models run locally or with a European provider.
The Chinese AI that rattled Wall Street: free, open and dirt-cheap for developers, with privacy small print.
Free plan
✓ Yes
Price
Free · API from $0.15/M tokens
Plans and pricing
Web chat and app€0
API · deepseek-flash (V4.1-Flash)$0.30 / $1.20 per million tokens (input / output, peak)
API · deepseek-v4-pro$1.32 / $3.96 per million tokens (peak)
API · Search / Fetch$0.75 per 1,000 requests
AIAO score
96/100
Member rating
Not enough ratings yet
Languages
No verified data
Where to use it
Web, iOS, Android and API; DeepSeek Harness (developer preview).
Pros
Free web chat and apps, no subscription.
Open weights under the MIT licence: run it on your own server without sending anything to China.
One of the cheapest APIs: Flash at $0.30 / $1.20 per million tokens at peak and half off-peak.
1M-token context and an API compatible with OpenAI and Anthropic formats.
Cons
Sensitive privacy: data in China and no simple training toggle.
Censorship on sensitive political topics.
Regulatory blocks and complaints (Italy, Germany, consumer groups) and very fast model changes in the API.
Use cases
Developers and companies wanting a powerful API at the lowest cost; students and curious users who want a free assistant for non-sensitive data; teams that prefer to deploy an open model on their own infrastructure.
If you use the API for long jobs (summarising hundreds of documents, batch translation), schedule them off-peak and pay half. For personal or company data, run the open model locally or with a European provider.
Privacy and data
Its policy (February 2026) says data is collected and stored in China and what you type may be used for training; opting out is by email and there is an EU representative. Alternative: its open models run locally or with a European provider.
