DeepSeek Coder Pricing 2026

DeepSeek Coder operates on a token-based pricing model. New users get 5 million free tokens. After that, input tokens cost $0.28 per million (or $0.028 for cache hits), and output tokens cost $0.42 per million. This makes it 95% cheaper than GPT-4 Turbo.

Yes, DeepSeek offers a generous free tier with 5 million tokens for new users (valid for 30 days). You can also use the free web chat interface at chat.deepseek.com or download the open-source model for local use.

Cache hits occur when DeepSeek has recently processed similar content and can reuse computations, costing only $0.028 per million tokens. Cache misses require full processing at $0.28 per million tokens - a 10x difference in cost.

DeepSeek Reasoner is designed for complex reasoning tasks and costs $0.50 per million input tokens and $2.18 per million output tokens. It includes up to 32K chain-of-thought tokens for advanced problem-solving.

Yes, DeepSeek Coder can be used commercially through their API or by downloading the open-source model. The pay-as-you-go pricing scales with your actual usage, making it cost-effective for both small projects and enterprise applications.

The free tier includes 5 million tokens valid for 30 days from signup. There are no daily rate limits during the 7-14 day trial period. After the free tokens are exhausted, you'll pay standard token rates.

User opinions are mixed. Some find it useful for programming tasks, but a notable share of reviewers warn about hallucinated information and fabricated sources. One reviewer noted: 'It can be useful for programming at times, but I don't trust it otherwise — it may fabricate information out of thin air.'

Not always. Users report that DeepSeek restricts sign-ups to major email providers such as Gmail and Outlook. Custom or business domain emails may be rejected. One user noted: 'Doesn't let me sign up because my email provider isn't one of the free ones. Tells me I can't sign up, that I need to use gmail, outlook, etc'

Multiple users have reported that DeepSeek's knowledge base lags significantly behind real-world events. Reviews from late 2025 described the training cutoff as 15+ months out of date at the time. This is a known limitation of the free tier and should be factored in for time-sensitive research or coding tasks.

Yes. Multiple reviewers have reported that DeepSeek refuses to answer or actively censors questions about politically sensitive topics, particularly those related to the Chinese government. One user reported: 'Today I asked deepseek a simple question and the answer was interesting, I asked the ai if the Chinese government is a democracy. The Ai stared to generate one answer and it did answer my question but in matter of seconds the answer was removed and replaces with the below screen shot. "Sorry, that’s beyond my current scope. Lets Tal about something else"'

The Free Tier currently caps file attachments at 2-3 files per session. This is a reduction from a previous limit of up to 10 files. If your workflow involves attaching multiple documents or source files at once, you will need to upgrade to DeepSeek V4 Flash or DeepSeek V4 Pro, both of which are custom-priced.

No. Image upload is not available on the Free Tier. Users who need to analyze screenshots, diagrams, or other images must upgrade to DeepSeek V4 Flash or DeepSeek V4 Pro (both custom-priced) or use a competing product that includes vision features on its free plan.

Not reliably. Several reviewers report that despite giving English-only instructions, DeepSeek reverts to responding in Chinese within a few exchanges. This is a known limitation of the Free Tier and has not been resolved as of the most recent reviews.