New rates still leave DeepSeek far below U.S., Chinese rivals
China’s DeepSeek will raise prices for its flagship V4 artificial intelligence models by more than fourfold beginning Aug. 16, according to a post on the company’s official website on Thursday, a move that leaves the Chinese developer’s rates well below those of U.S. and domestic competitors.
The increase lifts peak-hour output pricing for the DeepSeek-v4-pro model to $3.96 per million tokens, up from $0.87 previously. Tokens are the units of text that AI models process and form the basis on which providers charge for their services.
For both the pro and flash versions, off-peak pricing will run at half the peak rate. The DeepSeek-v4-flash model will charge $1.32 per million output tokens during peak hours, the company said.
The Wall Street Journal, reporting on the change, said the increase comes amid fierce competition among AI players, though DeepSeek’s new rates remain well below those of its rivals. Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3, for example, charges $15.00 per million output tokens.
DeepSeek is separately raising capital. The company is in talks with prospective investors for a new funding round after raising more than $7.4 billion in June.
The company is also preparing to list shares in Shanghai as early as the second quarter of next year, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Tracy Qu reported from Singapore for The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires.