# DeepInfra vs DeepSeek

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/deepinfra-vs-deepseek/

Every value below is read from DeepInfra's and DeepSeek's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | DeepInfra | DeepSeek |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Pricing model | Two products on one bill: per-token serverless inference with a separate cached-input rate for each model, and dedicated GPUs billed per minute and invoiced weekly. Models without per-token pricing are billed for inference execution time instead. | 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 | $1.30 per million input tokens for DeepSeek-V4-Pro, the most expensive model in its catalogue. Cached input is $0.10. | $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 | $2.60 per million output tokens for DeepSeek-V4-Pro. | $3.96 per million output tokens for deepseek-v4-pro at peak, $1.98 off-peak. |
| Input price, cheapest model | $0.06 per million input tokens for DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731, with cached input at $0.015 and output at $0.18. DeepSeek itself charges $0.44 at peak for the same checkpoint and Fireworks $0.22. | $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 | 1024k tokens on the DeepSeek V4 models it serves; 160k on the V3 generation. The window is the model's rather than a platform limit. | 1M tokens on every model in the current line. |
| Prompt caching | Supported | Supported |

## Where they differ

### Pricing model

- DeepInfra: Two products on one bill: per-token serverless inference with a separate cached-input rate for each model, and dedicated GPUs billed per minute and invoiced weekly. Models without per-token pricing are billed for inference execution time instead. ([source](https://deepinfra.com/pricing))
- 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. ([source](https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing))

### Input price, top model

- DeepInfra: $1.30 per million input tokens for DeepSeek-V4-Pro, the most expensive model in its catalogue. Cached input is $0.10. ([source](https://deepinfra.com/pricing))
- 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. ([source](https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing))

### Output price, top model

- DeepInfra: $2.60 per million output tokens for DeepSeek-V4-Pro. ([source](https://deepinfra.com/pricing))
- DeepSeek: $3.96 per million output tokens for deepseek-v4-pro at peak, $1.98 off-peak. ([source](https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing))

### Input price, cheapest model

- DeepInfra: $0.06 per million input tokens for DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731, with cached input at $0.015 and output at $0.18. DeepSeek itself charges $0.44 at peak for the same checkpoint and Fireworks $0.22. ([source](https://deepinfra.com/pricing))
- 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. ([source](https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing))

### Context window

- DeepInfra: 1024k tokens on the DeepSeek V4 models it serves; 160k on the V3 generation. The window is the model's rather than a platform limit. ([source](https://deepinfra.com/pricing))
- DeepSeek: 1M tokens on every model in the current line. ([source](https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing))

## Which should you choose?

Pick DeepInfra if Running open-weight models at the lowest published per-token rates here — DeepSeek-V4-Flash at $0.06 per million input is a fraction of what the lab itself charges — with dedicated H100s at $2.20 an hour if throughput demands it.

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.

Consider something else: DeepInfra — Only some models carry per-token pricing; the rest bill for inference execution time, which is a different and harder thing to forecast.

Consider something else: 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

- Max output tokens: DeepSeek: 384K tokens maximum.
- Rate limits: 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.
- H100 SXM, per GPU-hour: DeepInfra: $2.20 per GPU-hour for a dedicated H100 80GB — below every dedicated cloud in this dataset. A100 80GB is $0.89, H200 $2.69, B200 $3.69. Billed in minute granularity, invoiced weekly.
- Largest GPU offered: DeepInfra: 270GB per GPU on a B300, at $4.89 per GPU-hour.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Should I choose DeepInfra or DeepSeek?**

Pick DeepInfra if Running open-weight models at the lowest published per-token rates here — DeepSeek-V4-Flash at $0.06 per million input is a fraction of what the lab itself charges — with dedicated H100s at $2.20 an hour if throughput demands it.
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.