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Yes, the DeepSeek chat app is free on the web, iPhone and Android, with no paid plan to upgrade to and no card asked for. The API is a separate product billed per token. What you hand over is your chats: they are stored in China and used for training unless you switch that off.
Use the free app if you want a capable chatbot for everyday questions and code, and nothing you type is confidential.
Pay for the API if you are building something or running an agent, because $0.15 per million input tokens off-peak is hard to beat and there is no monthly fee.
Skip it if you handle client, patient or employer data, since the privacy policy says everything is stored in China and the terms are governed by Chinese law.
prices checked 2026-10-05 · by dan scutaru
| plan | price | what matters |
|---|---|---|
| Chat app (web, iOS, Android) | $0 | No paid tier and no in-app purchases. No message limit is published |
| API: deepseek-flash | $0.15 in / $0.60 out per 1M tokens, off-peak | Doubles at peak hours to $0.30 / $1.20. Cached input $0.003 to $0.006. Prepaid balance |
| API: deepseek-v4-pro | $0.66 in / $1.98 out per 1M tokens, off-peak | $1.32 / $3.96 at peak. Being phased out, see the API section below |
| Open weights | $0 licence (MIT) | You supply the hardware. The current model has 552 billion parameters |
The API charges per token from a balance you top up in advance, and the price depends on the clock. Peak hours are 01:00 to 04:00 and 06:00 to 10:00 UTC, Monday to Friday, which is evening in the US. Everything outside those windows, weekends included, is half price.
The pricing table still lists deepseek-v4-pro at its own higher rate. DeepSeek's September 10 announcement says that since September 14 those requests are routed to the Flash model at Flash rates, until a new Pro model launches. Check your bill, not the table.
The weights are open and the licence is MIT, so you can download, modify and sell what you build on them without paying DeepSeek. That is true of the current V4.1-Flash model and of V4-Pro before it.
Free to download is not free to run. V4.1-Flash is a 552-billion-parameter model, and the deployment examples on its model card are for GPU servers. Whatever fits on a laptop is an older, smaller or third-party compressed model, not what the app gives you.
No. DeepSeek sells no Plus or Pro plan for the chat app, and its US App Store listing shows a free app with no in-app purchases. A site charging a monthly fee for "DeepSeek Pro" is not DeepSeek.
No number is published. We found no message count on DeepSeek's site, its app listing or its terms. Because there is no paid tier, there is also nothing to buy when the service is slow or busy.
No. Every request is deducted from your balance at the per-token price. The pricing page mentions a "granted balance" that is spent before your own money, but promises no amount to new accounts.