Budget
US$0.27
DeepSeek V3
DeepSeek
At a glance
DeepSeek R1 from DeepSeek is a budget model priced at US$0.55 per 1M input tokens and US$2.19 per 1M output tokens. For a typical solo-developer workload (8 hours/day, 22 days/month — 1 medium feature, 5 small bug fixes, 4 PR reviews, 2 stack-trace debugs, ~1500 lines of TypeScript, 1 large-doc read, with prompt caching at the default mix) DeepSeek R1 costs about US$12/month. The 128K-token context window covers single-file workloads comfortably.
What does your monthly budget buy?
Move the slider or switch task mix — values update live.
Monthly budget
US$100 / month
≈ $23/wk · ≈ $4.55/day
on DeepSeek R1
Input tokens
246.4M
Output tokens
6.8M
Total tokens
253.2M
Per month this budget delivers
- Medium feature (10–15 files)493
- PR review5,910
- Lines of TypeScript1,645,278
- Small bug fix6,407
- Work email145,878
- Unit test file4,793
How does this model compare on price?
Input vs output per 1M tokens
Hover a row to compare input vs output rates.
- DeepSeek R1US$0.55US$2.19
- Budget median (other budget models)US$0.30US$1.10
- Cheapest in catalog (Gemini 2.0 Flash)US$0.10US$0.40
Input per 1MOutput per 1M
Cost per task
At the default coding-agent mix with 50% cache hits.
USD per single task
Hover a bar to see per-task cost detail.
- Lines of TypeScriptUS$0.0001
- Small bug fixUS$0.0156
- PR reviewUS$0.0169
- Read a large docUS$0.0227
- Debug from stack traceUS$0.0381
- Refactor a module (8–12 files)US$0.14
- Medium feature (10–15 files)US$0.20
- Onboard to a new repoUS$0.23
Typical developer day
The 22-day month is based on the median working-day count across DE/US.
| Activity | Count | Per task | Daily | Monthly |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Medium feature (10–15 files) | 1 | US$0.20 | US$0.20 | US$4.45 |
| Small bug fix | 5 | US$0.02 | US$0.08 | US$1.72 |
| PR review | 4 | US$0.02 | US$0.07 | US$1.49 |
| Debug from stack trace | 2 | US$0.04 | US$0.08 | US$1.68 |
| Read a large doc | 1 | US$0.02 | US$0.02 | US$0.50 |
| Micro-interaction (explain / lint fix) | 30 | US$0.00 | US$0.02 | US$0.52 |
| Lines of TypeScript | 1,500 | US$0.00 | US$0.09 | US$2.01 |
| Total | US$0.56 | US$12.36 | ||
The 1500-lines-of-TS row models ~1000 lines read (cache-hit) + ~500 lines written. Headline figures are precise to ~5% — see the FAQ.
Monthly cost matrix
What each monthly budget buys on this model (typical solo-developer day, 22 working days).
| Monthly budget | Medium features | PR reviews | Debug sessions | Lines of TS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Typical (≈ $12) | 61 | 730 | 324 | 203,319 |
| $50/month | 246 | 2,955 | 1,312 | 822,639 |
| $200/month | 987 | 11,820 | 5,251 | 3,290,556 |
| $500/month | 2,469 | 29,550 | 13,129 | 8,226,390 |
| $2000/month | 9,878 | 118,203 | 52,516 | 32,905,561 |
Typical mix: coding-agent (85% input, 50% cache hits). Values show the maximum count of each task type at that budget.
What this model can do
Coding
Trained or post-trained for code generation tasks.
Reasoning
Strong multi-step reasoning over complex prompts.
Multimodal
Not supported
Prompt cache
Cache reads billed at ~10% of input price — cuts agent costs sharply.
Batch API
Not supported
Tool use
Native function-calling / tool-use API support.
Long context
Not supported
Extended thinking
Hidden reasoning tokens (Anthropic 'thinking' / OpenAI reasoning).
When does this model fit?
Best for
- Reasoning at extreme cost-efficiency
- Self-hosted reasoning where API egress matters
- Long algorithmic coding tasks
Watch out for
- Verbose chain-of-thought eats output budget — cap with reasoning_effort=low when possible
- Latency higher than V3 due to reasoning trace
DeepSeek in the catalog
Total models
3
Median input/1M
US$0.27
Median output/1M
US$1.10
Input range
US$0.27–US$0.55
Related models
Sources
- DeepSeek API Pricing ↗
Verified: 2026-05-07
Frequently asked questions about DeepSeek R1
What does a typical month on DeepSeek R1 cost?
Running the realistic solo-developer day (1 medium feature + 5 small bug fixes + 4 PR reviews + 2 debug sessions + ~1500 lines of TypeScript + 1 large-doc read, 22 working days) on DeepSeek R1 costs about US$12/month. Heavier workloads scale proportionally; lighter workloads cost less.
How big is DeepSeek R1's context window?
128K tokens total, with up to 8K of output. That fits a few dozen source files in a single call.
Why is DeepSeek R1 output priced so much higher than input?
Providers charge US$2.19 per 1M output tokens against US$0.55 per 1M input — output requires real compute, input comes mostly from cache. Coding agents read many files (input-heavy) and emit compact diffs (low output), so total spend is usually input-driven.
How much does prompt caching save on DeepSeek R1?
Cache reads typically cost only 10% of the regular input rate. On a coding-agent mix with 50% cache hits, that saves roughly 45% on input — which is about 38% off your total bill on input-heavy workloads. Anthropic models charge a one-time cache-write surcharge (25% over input) that pays for itself after 2–3 hits.
How do thinking tokens affect DeepSeek R1's monthly bill?
Extended-thinking / reasoning tokens are billed at the full output rate but never appear in your visible response. On hard agentic tasks they can double your output bill, lifting the monthly total by 20–30%. Enable thinking only when the standard response visibly fails.
Try DeepSeek R1 pricing live
Open the full calculator with your own budget, task mix and region (US or DE with 19% VAT).
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