DeepSeek vs Fireworks AI
A comparison of DeepSeek and Fireworks AI built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
The short answer
- 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.
- Pick Fireworks AI if
- Running open-weight models without operating GPUs — the same DeepSeek and Qwen checkpoints the labs publish, served per token, with a path to dedicated hardware if throughput demands it.
6 sourced criteria separate them:
- Pricing model
- 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.
- Fireworks AI: Three products on one bill. Serverless inference is per token, per model. Fine-tuning is per million TRAINING tokens by parameter band — $0.50 for models up to 16B, $10.00 above 300B. Dedicated GPUs are hourly: $7.00 for an H100 or H200, $10.00 for a B200.
- Input price, top 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.
- Fireworks AI: $3.00 per million input tokens for Kimi K3, the most expensive model in its serverless catalogue. Fireworks hosts other labs' open-weight models rather than its own, so "flagship" here means the top of what it serves.
- Output price, top model
- DeepSeek: $3.96 per million output tokens for deepseek-v4-pro at peak, $1.98 off-peak.
- Fireworks AI: $15.00 per million output tokens for Kimi K3.
- Input price, cheapest model
- 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.
- Fireworks AI: $0.15 per million input tokens for GLM 5.3 Flash, with output at $0.50. DeepSeek-V4-Flash is $0.22 in and $0.66 out — the same model DeepSeek itself sells at $0.44 peak.
- Context window
- DeepSeek: 1M tokens on every model in the current line.
- Fireworks AI: 1,048,576 tokens on Kimi K3, GLM 5.3 and both DeepSeek V4 variants; 262,144 on Qwen3.8 and 131,072 on Muse Glimmer 30B. The window is the model's, not Fireworks'.
- Max output tokens
- DeepSeek: 384K tokens maximum.
- Fireworks AI: No separate output cap. max_tokens is bounded by the model's context length — prompt plus completion must fit inside it — and what happens on overflow is set by context_length_exceeded_behavior rather than a fixed ceiling.
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.
DeepSeek 0
Fireworks AI 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | DeepSeek | Fireworks AI |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| Pricing model | 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. | Three products on one bill. Serverless inference is per token, per model. Fine-tuning is per million TRAINING tokens by parameter band — $0.50 for models up to 16B, $10.00 above 300B. Dedicated GPUs are hourly: $7.00 for an H100 or H200, $10.00 for a B200. |
| Inference | ||
| Input price, top 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. | $3.00 per million input tokens for Kimi K3, the most expensive model in its serverless catalogue. Fireworks hosts other labs' open-weight models rather than its own, so "flagship" here means the top of what it serves. |
| Output price, top model | $3.96 per million output tokens for deepseek-v4-pro at peak, $1.98 off-peak. | $15.00 per million output tokens for Kimi K3. |
| Input price, cheapest model | $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. | $0.15 per million input tokens for GLM 5.3 Flash, with output at $0.50. DeepSeek-V4-Flash is $0.22 in and $0.66 out — the same model DeepSeek itself sells at $0.44 peak. |
| Context window | 1M tokens on every model in the current line. | 1,048,576 tokens on Kimi K3, GLM 5.3 and both DeepSeek V4 variants; 262,144 on Qwen3.8 and 131,072 on Muse Glimmer 30B. The window is the model's, not Fireworks'. |
| Max output tokens | 384K tokens maximum. | No separate output cap. max_tokens is bounded by the model's context length — prompt plus completion must fit inside it — and what happens on overflow is set by context_length_exceeded_behavior rather than a fixed ceiling. |
| Prompt caching | Supported | Supported |
Where they differ.
Pricing model
- 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.
- Fireworks AI
- Three products on one bill. Serverless inference is per token, per model. Fine-tuning is per million TRAINING tokens by parameter band — $0.50 for models up to 16B, $10.00 above 300B. Dedicated GPUs are hourly: $7.00 for an H100 or H200, $10.00 for a B200.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- 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
- Pricing — Fireworks AI ↗
“MODELS UP TO 16B PARAMETERS $0.50 $1.00 $1.00 $2.00 [...] MODELS >300B (E.G. DEEPSEEK V3, KIMI K2) $10.00 $20.00 $20.00 $40.00 [...] H100 80 GB GPU $7.00 $8.00 H200 141 GB GPU $7.00 $8.00 B200 180 GB GPU $10.00 $13.00”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Input price, top 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.
- Fireworks AI
- $3.00 per million input tokens for Kimi K3, the most expensive model in its serverless catalogue. Fireworks hosts other labs' open-weight models rather than its own, so "flagship" here means the top of what it serves.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- 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
- Models — Fireworks AI ↗
“Kimi K3 $3/M Input • $15/M Output • 1048576 Context”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Output price, top model
- DeepSeek
- $3.96 per million output tokens for deepseek-v4-pro at peak, $1.98 off-peak.
- Fireworks AI
- $15.00 per million output tokens for Kimi K3.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- 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
- Models — Fireworks AI ↗
“Kimi K3 $3/M Input • $15/M Output • 1048576 Context”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Input price, cheapest model
- 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.
- Fireworks AI
- $0.15 per million input tokens for GLM 5.3 Flash, with output at $0.50. DeepSeek-V4-Flash is $0.22 in and $0.66 out — the same model DeepSeek itself sells at $0.44 peak.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- 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
- Models — Fireworks AI ↗
“GLM 5.3 Flash $0.15/M Input • $0.5/M Output • 1048576 Context [...] DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 $0.22/M Input • $0.66/M Output • 1048576 Context”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Context window
1M tokens on every model in the current line.
1,048,576 tokens on Kimi K3, GLM 5.3 and both DeepSeek V4 variants; 262,144 on Qwen3.8 and 131,072 on Muse Glimmer 30B. The window is the model's, not Fireworks'.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Models & Pricing — DeepSeek API Docs ↗
“CONTEXT LENGTH 1M”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Models — Fireworks AI ↗
“Kimi K3 $3/M Input • $15/M Output • 1048576 Context [...] Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B $2/M Input • $6/M Output • 262144 Context [...] Muse Glimmer 30B $0.35/M Input • $1.5/M Output • 131072 Context”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Max output tokens
- DeepSeek
- 384K tokens maximum.
- Fireworks AI
- No separate output cap. max_tokens is bounded by the model's context length — prompt plus completion must fit inside it — and what happens on overflow is set by context_length_exceeded_behavior rather than a fixed ceiling.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Models & Pricing — DeepSeek API Docs ↗
“MAX OUTPUT MAXIMUM: 384K”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Chat Completions API — Fireworks docs ↗
“The maximum number of tokens to generate in the completion. If the token count of your prompt plus max_tokens exceeds the model's context length, the behavior depends on context_length_exceeded_behavior.”
Read 2026-09-07 · official docs
When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.
Which should you choose?
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
Choose Fireworks AI if…
Running open-weight models without operating GPUs — the same DeepSeek and Qwen checkpoints the labs publish, served per token, with a path to dedicated hardware if throughput demands it.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Consider something else if…
- 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.
- Fireworks AI: You want a frontier proprietary model: Fireworks serves other people's open weights, so the ceiling is whatever the open ecosystem has released.
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 DeepSeek or Fireworks AI?
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.
Pick Fireworks AI if Running open-weight models without operating GPUs — the same DeepSeek and Qwen checkpoints the labs publish, served per token, with a path to dedicated hardware if throughput demands it.