Anthropic vs DeepSeek
A comparison of Anthropic and DeepSeek built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
The short answer
- 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.
6 sourced criteria separate them:
- 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. Cache hits are priced roughly 30x below cache misses.
- Input price, top model
- Anthropic: $10 per million input tokens for Claude Fable 5.1, the most capable model. Claude Opus 5 is $5 and Claude Sonnet 5 is $2.
- 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.
- Output price, top model
- Anthropic: $50 per million output tokens for Claude Fable 5.1. Claude Opus 5 is $25 and Claude Sonnet 5 is $10.
- DeepSeek: $3.96 per million output tokens for deepseek-v4-pro at peak, $1.98 off-peak.
- Input price, cheapest model
- Anthropic: $1 per million input tokens for Claude Haiku 4.5, the cheapest current model, with output at $5.
- DeepSeek: $0.44 per million input tokens for deepseek-v4-flash at peak on a cache miss, $0.22 off-peak, with output at $1.32 peak.
- Context window
- Anthropic: 1M tokens on Claude Fable 5.1, Claude Opus 5 and Claude Sonnet 5; 200K on Claude Haiku 4.5. Anthropic states the full 1M window is billed at standard per-token rates.
- DeepSeek: 1M tokens on every model in the current line.
- Max output tokens
- Anthropic: 128K tokens on the top three models, 64K on Claude Haiku 4.5. The Batch API supports up to 300K output tokens on several models behind a beta header.
- DeepSeek: 384K tokens maximum.
Pick the criteria you care about. The chart counts how many of them lean toward each provider — the same read as scanning the bars below, just totalled for the ones you chose.
Anthropic 0
DeepSeek 0
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. Cache hits are priced roughly 30x below cache misses. |
| Inference | ||
| Input price, top model | $10 per million input tokens for Claude Fable 5.1, the most capable model. Claude Opus 5 is $5 and Claude Sonnet 5 is $2. | $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. |
| Output price, top model | $50 per million output tokens for Claude Fable 5.1. Claude Opus 5 is $25 and Claude Sonnet 5 is $10. | $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, with output at $5. | $0.44 per million input tokens for deepseek-v4-flash at peak on a cache miss, $0.22 off-peak, with output at $1.32 peak. |
| Context window | 1M tokens on Claude Fable 5.1, Claude Opus 5 and Claude Sonnet 5; 200K on Claude Haiku 4.5. Anthropic states the full 1M window is billed at standard per-token rates. | 1M tokens on every model in the current line. |
| Max output tokens | 128K tokens on the top three models, 64K on Claude Haiku 4.5. The Batch API supports up to 300K output tokens on several models behind a beta header. | 384K tokens maximum. |
| Prompt caching | Supported | Supported |
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. Cache hits are priced roughly 30x below cache misses.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- 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
- 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 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Input price, top model
- Anthropic
- $10 per million input tokens for Claude Fable 5.1, the most capable model. Claude Opus 5 is $5 and Claude Sonnet 5 is $2.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Claude Docs ↗
“Claude Fable 5.1 | $10 / MTok | $12.50 / MTok | $20 / MTok | $0.25 / MTok | $50 / MTok [...] Claude Opus 5 | $5 / MTok [...] Claude Sonnet 5 | $2 / MTok”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Models & Pricing — DeepSeek API Docs ↗
“1M INPUT TOKENS (CACHE MISS) OFF-PEAK $0.22 $0.66 $0.22 PEAK $0.44 $1.32 $0.44 [...] 1M INPUT TOKENS (CACHE HIT) OFF-PEAK $0.007 $0.022 $0.007 PEAK $0.014 $0.044 $0.014”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Output price, top model
- Anthropic
- $50 per million output tokens for Claude Fable 5.1. Claude Opus 5 is $25 and Claude Sonnet 5 is $10.
- DeepSeek
- $3.96 per million output tokens for deepseek-v4-pro at peak, $1.98 off-peak.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Claude Docs ↗
“Claude Fable 5.1 | $10 / MTok | [...] | $50 / MTok [...] Claude Opus 5 | [...] $25 / MTok [...] Claude Sonnet 5 | [...] $10 / MTok”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Models & Pricing — DeepSeek API Docs ↗
“1M OUTPUT TOKENS OFF-PEAK $0.66 $1.98 $0.66 PEAK $1.32 $3.96 $1.32”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Input price, cheapest model
- Anthropic
- $1 per million input tokens for Claude Haiku 4.5, the cheapest current model, with output at $5.
- DeepSeek
- $0.44 per million input tokens for deepseek-v4-flash at peak on a cache miss, $0.22 off-peak, with output at $1.32 peak.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Claude Docs ↗
“Claude Haiku 4.5 | $1 / MTok | $1.25 / MTok | $2 / MTok | $0.10 / MTok | $5 / MTok”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Models & Pricing — DeepSeek API Docs ↗
“MODEL deepseek-v4-flash [...] 1M INPUT TOKENS (CACHE MISS) OFF-PEAK $0.22 [...] PEAK $0.44 [...] 1M OUTPUT TOKENS [...] PEAK $1.32”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Context window
1M tokens on Claude Fable 5.1, Claude Opus 5 and Claude Sonnet 5; 200K on Claude Haiku 4.5. Anthropic states the full 1M window is billed at standard per-token rates.
1M tokens on every model in the current line.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Models overview — Claude Docs ↗
“Context window | 1M tokens | 1M tokens | 1M tokens | 200K tokens”
Read 2026-09-06 · official docs
- Models & Pricing — DeepSeek API Docs ↗
“CONTEXT LENGTH 1M”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Max output tokens
128K tokens on the top three models, 64K on Claude Haiku 4.5. The Batch API supports up to 300K output tokens on several models behind a beta header.
384K tokens maximum.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Models overview — Claude Docs ↗
“Max output | 128K tokens | 128K tokens | 128K tokens | 64K tokens [...] On the Message Batches API, Claude Opus 5, Claude Sonnet 5 [...] support up to 300k output tokens with the output-300k-2026-03-24 beta header.”
Read 2026-09-06 · official docs
- Models & Pricing — DeepSeek API Docs ↗
“MAX OUTPUT MAXIMUM: 384K”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Which should you choose?
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.
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.
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.