# DeepSeek vs Novita AI

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

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

## At a glance

| Criterion | DeepSeek | Novita AI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 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. | Per-token serverless inference with a cache-read rate published beside most models, and GPU instances offered at both on-demand and spot rates — the spot column is roughly half. Two models, Ling 3.0 Flash Fin and Sante, are listed at no charge on both input and output. |
| 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. | $2.00 per million input tokens for Qwen3.8 Max, the most expensive model in its catalogue, with cache reads at $0.25 and output at $6.00. |
| Output price, top model | $3.96 per million output tokens for deepseek-v4-pro at peak, $1.98 off-peak. | $6.00 per million output tokens for Qwen3.8 Max. |
| 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. | $0.075 per million input tokens for GLM 5.3 Flash at short context, rising to $0.15 above the threshold, with cache reads at $0.015 and output at $0.25. Fireworks serves the same model at $0.15. |
| Context window | 1M tokens on every model in the current line. | 1M tokens on the DeepSeek V4 line and GLM 5.3, published as "1M" rather than an exact figure — so it is recorded at 1,000,000 and may in practice be the 1,048,576 other providers state. Qwen3.8 is listed at 977K. |
| 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. ([source](https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing))
- Novita AI: Per-token serverless inference with a cache-read rate published beside most models, and GPU instances offered at both on-demand and spot rates — the spot column is roughly half. Two models, Ling 3.0 Flash Fin and Sante, are listed at no charge on both input and output. ([source](https://novita.ai/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. ([source](https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing))
- Novita AI: $2.00 per million input tokens for Qwen3.8 Max, the most expensive model in its catalogue, with cache reads at $0.25 and output at $6.00. ([source](https://novita.ai/pricing))

### Output price, top model

- 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))
- Novita AI: $6.00 per million output tokens for Qwen3.8 Max. ([source](https://novita.ai/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. ([source](https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing))
- Novita AI: $0.075 per million input tokens for GLM 5.3 Flash at short context, rising to $0.15 above the threshold, with cache reads at $0.015 and output at $0.25. Fireworks serves the same model at $0.15. ([source](https://novita.ai/pricing))

### Context window

- DeepSeek: 1M tokens on every model in the current line. ([source](https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing))
- Novita AI: 1M tokens on the DeepSeek V4 line and GLM 5.3, published as "1M" rather than an exact figure — so it is recorded at 1,000,000 and may in practice be the 1,048,576 other providers state. Qwen3.8 is listed at 977K. ([source](https://novita.ai/pricing))

## Which should you choose?

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 Novita AI if Breadth — 200+ models under one API with a cache-read rate published next to most of them, and an H100 SXM at $3.39 an hour if the same vendor should run the dedicated side too.

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.

Consider something else: Novita AI — It is rarely the cheapest for any given model: DeepInfra serves DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 at $0.06 against Novita's $0.44, and its H100 is $2.20 against Novita's $3.39 on demand.

## 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: Novita AI: $3.39 per GPU-hour for an on-demand H100 SXM 80GB, or $1.70 spot. The page names the card the site's GPU comparison is fixed on, so no substitution is involved.
- Largest GPU offered: Novita AI: 80GB per GPU on an H100 SXM, the largest card it lists; below it are an L40S 48GB, RTX 5090 32GB and RTX 4090 24GB.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Should I choose DeepSeek or Novita 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 Novita AI if Breadth — 200+ models under one API with a cache-read rate published next to most of them, and an H100 SXM at $3.39 an hour if the same vendor should run the dedicated side too.