Tuesday, August 18, 2026
DeepSeek's steep peak-hour API price hikes take effect
DeepSeek's new peak/off-peak billing for its V4-Pro and V4-Flash APIs took effect August 16, replacing flat per-token rates with time-of-day pricing. V4-Pro output rose from a flat $0.87 per million tokens to $3.96 per million at peak hours (01:00-04:00 and 06:00-10:00 UTC, half that off-peak), and V4-Flash output rose from $0.28 to $1.32 per million at peak, increases the company flagged in mid-August as it pursues a possible IPO.
/ Sources
/ Related
- DeepSeek ships V4-Pro to general availabilityFriday, August 14, 2026
- DeepSeek to raise AI service prices, ending price warSaturday, August 8, 2026
- DeepSeek resumes funding round, seeks $8B at $74B valuationFriday, August 7, 2026
- DeepSeek takes stake in Unitree IPO, signs robotics AI pactFriday, August 7, 2026