Anthropic vs DeepSeek

SEPT 2026 audit

A comparison of Anthropic and DeepSeek built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.

Reviewed by Palash BagchiUpdated September 202624 criteria comparedSources last checked 3 October 2026

This comparison is not published yet.

It does not meet the quality gate, so the page is marked noindex until the missing data is sourced.

— Anthropic's pricing_model was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Anthropic's batch_discount was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Anthropic's startup_credit_program was verified 44 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Anthropic's free_tier was verified 42 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Anthropic's regions was verified 42 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Anthropic's rate_limits was verified 42 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Anthropic's free_offer_type was verified 42 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Anthropic's soc2 was verified 42 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Anthropic's iso27001 was verified 42 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Anthropic's hipaa_eligible was verified 42 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Anthropic's gdpr_data_residency was verified 42 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Anthropic's encryption_at_rest was verified 42 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Anthropic's customer_managed_keys was verified 42 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Anthropic's rbac was verified 42 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Anthropic's private_networking was verified 42 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Anthropic's dedicated_infrastructure was verified 42 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Anthropic's flagship_input_price was verified 41 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Anthropic's flagship_output_price was verified 41 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Anthropic's budget_input_price was verified 41 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Anthropic's context_window was verified 41 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Anthropic's max_output_tokens was verified 41 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Anthropic's prompt_caching was verified 41 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— DeepSeek's rate_limits was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— DeepSeek's minimum_paid_price was verified 42 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— DeepSeek's pricing_model was verified 42 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— DeepSeek's flagship_input_price was verified 42 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— DeepSeek's flagship_output_price was verified 42 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— DeepSeek's budget_input_price was verified 42 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— DeepSeek's context_window was verified 42 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— DeepSeek's max_output_tokens was verified 42 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— DeepSeek's prompt_caching was verified 42 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— DeepSeek's concurrency_limit was verified 42 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— DeepSeek's gdpr_data_residency was verified 42 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.

The short answer

Choose Anthropic if…

Teams that want the full 1M-token window at the standard per-token rate rather than a long-context surcharge, and that can use caching and batch to cut a frontier-model bill roughly in half.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Choose DeepSeek if…

Batch-shaped work that can run outside weekday mornings UTC, where off-peak halves an already low rate and a cache hit costs about 3% of a cache miss.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Consider something else if…

Anthropic: Its cheapest model is $1 per million input tokens, several times what the budget tiers at Google, OpenAI and DeepSeek charge, so high-volume simple work is priced against you.
DeepSeek: Capacity is expressed as concurrent requests rather than tokens per minute, which is a different thing to plan against, and the peak window lands on European working hours.

8 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.

Visit Anthropic documentation Visit DeepSeek documentation

No affiliate links, sponsored placements or paid rankings appear on this site. Ordering follows the sourced data and the stated criteria.

01.

At a glance.

Criterion	Anthropic	DeepSeek
Pricing
Pricing model	Per million tokens, priced separately for input and output and per model, with multipliers stacked on top: prompt caching, a 50% batch discount, a 1.1x uplift for US-only inference on Claude 4.6 and later, and a fast-mode premium.	Per million tokens, with every rate doubling at peak: off-peak is half price, and peak is 01:00-04:00 and 06:00-10:00 UTC on weekdays.
Inference
Input price, top model	$10 per million input tokens for Claude Fable 5.1, the most capable model.	$1.32 per million input tokens for deepseek-v4-pro at peak on a cache miss, halving to $0.66 off-peak; a cache hit is $0.044 peak and $0.022 off-peak.
Output price, top model	$50 per million output tokens for Claude Fable 5.1.	$3.96 per million output tokens for deepseek-v4-pro at peak, $1.98 off-peak.
Input price, cheapest model	$1 per million input tokens for Claude Haiku 4.5, the cheapest current model.	$0.3 per million input tokens for deepseek-flash at peak on a cache miss, $0.15 off-peak; output is $1.2 peak and $0.6 off-peak.
Context window	1M tokens on Claude Fable 5.1, Claude Opus 5 and Claude Sonnet 5; 200K on Claude Haiku 4.5.	1M tokens on both models in the current line, deepseek-flash and deepseek-v4-pro.
Max output tokens	128K tokens on the top three models, 64K on Claude Haiku 4.5.	384K tokens maximum.
Prompt caching	Supported — Priced separately: 5-minute and 1-hour cache writes, with cheaper cache hits and refreshes.	Supported
Rate limits	Per-organization limits set by usage tier (Start, Build, Scale, Custom). On the Start tier the Messages API allows 1,000 RPM with 2,000,000 input and 400,000 output tokens per minute for Claude Opus 5, Sonnet 5 and Haiku 4.5, under a $500/month spend cap.	Concurrency rather than requests per minute: 500 concurrent requests on deepseek-v4-pro and 2,500 on deepseek-v4-flash, per account rather than per key. Exceeding it returns HTTP 429, and expansion is free on request.
Compliance
GDPR / data residency	Inference geo is chosen per request ("global" or "us"); workspace data-at-rest geo is fixed at creation and "us" is currently the only option.	Personal data is collected, processed and stored in the People's Republic of China; Prighter is the appointed EU and UK privacy representative.

Only criteria both providers publish appear here; a tinted cell marks a real difference. Criteria only one of them documents are listed below, and an absence there means we found no source — not that the feature is missing. How we source this.

The small bar above a value is inetGeek's own lean toward that side — computed from the same facts shown, never a number the provider published. See the picker below "The short answer" to weigh only the criteria you care about.

02.

Where they differ.

Pricing model

Anthropic: Per million tokens, priced separately for input and output and per model, with multipliers stacked on top: prompt caching, a 50% batch discount, a 1.1x uplift for US-only inference on Claude 4.6 and later, and a fast-mode premium.
DeepSeek: Per million tokens, with every rate doubling at peak: off-peak is half price, and peak is 01:00-04:00 and 06:00-10:00 UTC on weekdays.

Sources (2) →

Pricing — Claude Docs ↗
“This page provides detailed pricing information for Anthropic's models and features. All prices are in USD. [...] These multipliers stack with other pricing modifiers, including the Batch API discount and data residency. [...] specifying US-only inference through the inference_geo parameter incurs a 1.1x multiplier on all token pricing categories”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing · Report a correction
Models & Pricing | DeepSeek API Docs ↗
“The prices listed below are in units of per 1M tokens. [...] Off-peak rates are half of the peak rates. Peak hours are 01:00 - 04:00 and 06:00 - 10:00 UTC, Monday through Friday (all other hours are off-peak).”
Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing · Report a correction

Input price, top model

Anthropic: $10 per million input tokens for Claude Fable 5.1, the most capable model.
DeepSeek: $1.32 per million input tokens for deepseek-v4-pro at peak on a cache miss, halving to $0.66 off-peak; a cache hit is $0.044 peak and $0.022 off-peak.

Sources (2) →

Pricing — Claude Docs ↗
“Model Base input tokens 5m cache writes 1h cache writes Cache hits and refreshes Output tokens Claude Fable 5.1 $10 / MTok $12.50 / MTok $20 / MTok $0.25 / MTok 1 $50 / MTok”
Read 2026-09-14 · official pricing · Report a correction
Models & Pricing | DeepSeek API Docs ↗
“1M INPUT TOKENS (CACHE MISS) OFF-PEAK $0.15 $0.66 PEAK $0.3 $1.32 [...] 1M INPUT TOKENS (CACHE HIT) OFF-PEAK $0.003 $0.022 PEAK $0.006 $0.044”
Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing · Report a correction

Output price, top model

Anthropic: $50 per million output tokens for Claude Fable 5.1.
DeepSeek: $3.96 per million output tokens for deepseek-v4-pro at peak, $1.98 off-peak.

Sources (2) →

Pricing — Claude Docs ↗
“Model Base input tokens 5m cache writes 1h cache writes Cache hits and refreshes Output tokens Claude Fable 5.1 $10 / MTok $12.50 / MTok $20 / MTok $0.25 / MTok 1 $50 / MTok”
Read 2026-09-14 · official pricing · Report a correction
Models & Pricing | DeepSeek API Docs ↗
“1M OUTPUT TOKENS OFF-PEAK $0.6 $1.98 PEAK $1.2 $3.96”
Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing · Report a correction

Input price, cheapest model

Anthropic: $1 per million input tokens for Claude Haiku 4.5, the cheapest current model.
DeepSeek: $0.3 per million input tokens for deepseek-flash at peak on a cache miss, $0.15 off-peak; output is $1.2 peak and $0.6 off-peak.

Sources (2) →

Pricing — Claude Docs ↗
“Claude Haiku 4.5 $1 / MTok $1.25 / MTok $2 / MTok $0.10 / MTok $5 / MTok”
Read 2026-09-14 · official pricing · Report a correction
Models & Pricing | DeepSeek API Docs ↗
“MODEL deepseek-flash(1) deepseek-v4-pro(2) [...] 1M INPUT TOKENS (CACHE MISS) OFF-PEAK $0.15 $0.66 PEAK $0.3 $1.32 [...] 1M OUTPUT TOKENS OFF-PEAK $0.6 $1.98 PEAK $1.2 $3.96”
Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing · Report a correction

Context window

Anthropic

1M tokens on Claude Fable 5.1, Claude Opus 5 and Claude Sonnet 5; 200K on Claude Haiku 4.5.

DeepSeek

1M tokens on both models in the current line, deepseek-flash and deepseek-v4-pro.

Sources (2) →

Models overview — Claude Docs ↗
“Context window 1M tokens 1M tokens 1M tokens 200K tokens Max output 128K tokens 128K tokens 128K tokens 64K tokens”
Read 2026-09-14 · official docs · Report a correction
Models & Pricing | DeepSeek API Docs ↗
“CONTEXT LENGTH 1M”
Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing · Report a correction

Max output tokens

Anthropic: 128K tokens on the top three models, 64K on Claude Haiku 4.5.
DeepSeek: 384K tokens maximum.

Sources (2) →

Models overview — Claude Docs ↗
“Context window 1M tokens 1M tokens 1M tokens 200K tokens Max output 128K tokens 128K tokens 128K tokens 64K tokens”
Read 2026-09-14 · official docs · Report a correction
Models & Pricing | DeepSeek API Docs ↗
“MAX OUTPUT MAXIMUM: 384K”
Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing · Report a correction

Rate limits

Anthropic: Per-organization limits set by usage tier (Start, Build, Scale, Custom). On the Start tier the Messages API allows 1,000 RPM with 2,000,000 input and 400,000 output tokens per minute for Claude Opus 5, Sonnet 5 and Haiku 4.5, under a $500/month spend cap.
DeepSeek: Concurrency rather than requests per minute: 500 concurrent requests on deepseek-v4-pro and 2,500 on deepseek-v4-flash, per account rather than per key. Exceeding it returns HTTP 429, and expansion is free on request.

Sources (2) →

Rate limits - Claude Platform Docs ↗
“The rate limits for the Messages API are measured in requests per minute (RPM), input tokens per minute (ITPM), and output tokens per minute (OTPM) for each model class. [...] Claude Opus 5 1,000 2,000,000 400,000 [...] Usage tier Monthly spend cap Start $500 USD Build $1,000 USD Scale $200,000 USD”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction
Rate Limit & Isolation — DeepSeek API Docs ↗
“Concurrency Limit | 500 | 2500 | 2500 [...] Concurrency limits are calculated at the account level, regardless of which API Key is used [...] when the concurrency limit is exceeded, you will receive an HTTP 429 error code [...] There is no additional cost for capacity expansion.”
Read 2026-09-06 · official docs · Report a correction

GDPR / data residency

Anthropic: Inference geo is chosen per request ("global" or "us"); workspace data-at-rest geo is fixed at creation and "us" is currently the only option.
DeepSeek: Personal data is collected, processed and stored in the People's Republic of China; Prighter is the appointed EU and UK privacy representative.

Sources (2) →

Data residency - Claude Platform Docs ↗
“inference geo: controls where model inference runs, on a per-request basis [...] Workspace geo is set when you create a workspace and can [...] is the only available workspace geo.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction
DeepSeek Privacy Policy ↗
“we directly collect, process and store your Personal Data in People's Republic of China [...] have therefore appointed Prighter Group with its local partners as our privacy representative”
Read 2026-09-13 · official site · Report a correction

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03.

Documented by only one.

These criteria are published by one provider and not the other. An absence here means we have not found a source, not that the feature is missing — except where we say we read the other provider's own page on a given date and it does not state it. Those rows lean, and the provider can correct them with a link.

Free tierAnthropic: No

Kind of free offerAnthropic: Free credit

Entry paid planDeepSeek: No entry plan — DeepSeek publishes one unified pricing standard for the API and states there are no tiered plans. Stated in the API FAQ answer on whether higher-rate-limit plans exist.

Startup credit programAnthropic: Claude for Startups: free credits and priority rate limits, amount undisclosed until application. Open to any early-stage founder with or without VC backing per the FAQ, though the main eligibility list also requires equity funding, founding within the last 4 years, and no prior Anthropic startup credits.

RegionsAnthropic: Two inference geos on the Claude API: "global" (the default, any available geography) and "us" (US-based infrastructure only, priced at 1.1x on Claude 4.6 and later). Workspace storage geo is "us" only.

Batch discountAnthropic: 50% off both input and output tokens through the Batch API, for asynchronous processing.

ConcurrencyDeepSeek: 2,500 concurrent requests on deepseek-flash and 500 on deepseek-v4-pro.

SOC 2Anthropic: SOC 2 Type II; the Trust Center lists a 2025 Type 2 SOC 2 and CSA STAR L2 report, a SOC 3 report and a 2026 bridge letter, released on access request.

ISO 27001Anthropic: ISO 27001:2022 certified, with an ISO 27001 Certificate (2025) and an ISO/IEC 42001:2023 certificate listed in the Trust Center.

HIPAAAnthropic: HIPAA-ready on the Claude API with a signed BAA; Claude Code, Console usage, Claude Platform on AWS and Microsoft Foundry are not covered.

Encryption at restAnthropic: Workspace data is encrypted at rest under Anthropic's default encryption; an opt-in customer-managed key can replace it.

Customer-managed keysAnthropic: Optional CMEK using a key in your own AWS KMS, Google Cloud KMS or Azure Key Vault; US regions only, permanent once enabled, activated by the account team.

Role-based access controlAnthropic: Claude Enterprise members hold one of five organization roles, plus custom roles attached to groups; the Admin API reads groups and custom roles.

Private networking / VPCAnthropic: AWS PrivateLink is supported for connecting your VPC to the Claude Platform on AWS endpoint. Claude Platform on AWS; the statement does not extend to the first-party api.anthropic.com endpoint.

Dedicated infrastructureAnthropic: Priority Tier capacity commitments are no longer sold; existing ones run to their contract end date and guaranteed capacity goes through sales.

04.

Questions this comparison answers.

Should I choose Anthropic or DeepSeek?

Pick Anthropic if Teams that want the full 1M-token window at the standard per-token rate rather than a long-context surcharge, and that can use caching and batch to cut a frontier-model bill roughly in half.

Pick DeepSeek if Batch-shaped work that can run outside weekday mornings UTC, where off-peak halves an already low rate and a cache hit costs about 3% of a cache miss.

Provider pages

AnthropicHosted inference for the Claude model family, sold per million tokens with prompt caching and a batch tier.DeepSeekHosted inference for the DeepSeek model family, priced per million tokens with peak and off-peak rates.

Related comparisons

Anthropic vs DeepInfra Anthropic vs Fireworks AI Anthropic vs Google Gemini API Anthropic vs Novita AI Anthropic vs OpenAI Baseten vs Anthropic Baseten vs DeepSeek DeepInfra vs DeepSeek

Anthropic vs DeepSeek

The short answer

Choose Anthropic if…

Choose DeepSeek if…

Consider something else if…

At a glance.

Where they differ.

Pricing model

Input price, top model

Output price, top model

Input price, cheapest model

Context window

Max output tokens

Rate limits

GDPR / data residency

Documented by only one.

Questions this comparison answers.

Provider pages

Related comparisons

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