Why is DeepSeek v4 Flash API pricing so cheap?
is a large 284-billion-parameter model, yet API providers like OpenRouter offer it at extremely low prices. The poster notes it costs less than Qwen, a model with only about 27 billion parameters — a tenth of DeepSeek's size — which seems counterintuitive.
Possible explanations raised include providers selling at a loss (dumping) or 's being fundamentally different in a way that makes serving it much cheaper. The poster lacks a GPU and has only run smaller ~26B models locally at single-digit tokens-per-second, so they're asking people who have actually hosted what makes it different.
Key points
- has 284 billion parameters but is priced very cheaply on API platforms like OpenRouter
- It's even cheaper than Qwen, a much smaller 27-billion-parameter model, which is unusual for cost-per-parameter
- Possible causes suggested: providers dumping/selling at a loss, or a cost-efficient unique to DeepSeek
- The poster has no GPU and no direct hosting experience, and is asking others who have run themselves
Sources covering this story (4)
- r/LocalLLaMAWhy is DeepSeek v4 Flash API pricing so cheap? ↗
- r/LLMDevsDeepSeek V4 Flash vs GLM-5.2 vs Hy3 on the same frontend coding task ↗
- r/LocalLLaMADeepSeek V4 Flash with DSpark via SGLang ↗
- r/LLMDevsCheap model (DeepSeek V4 Flash) + a symbolic proof layer matched/beat frontier LLMs on τ²-bench banking at ~1/40th the cost ↗