--- title: DeepSeek built a Claude Code rival, then quadrupled its... description: DeepSeek raised API prices sharply from 16 August, with V4-Pro peak output pricing jumping from $0.87 to $3.96 per million tokens and V4-Flash rising from... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/deepseek-built-a-claude-code-rival-then-quadrupled-its-prices-vjgzegrqy twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: DeepSeek built a Claude Code rival, then quadrupled its prices | daily.dev og:description: DeepSeek raised API prices sharply from 16 August, with V4-Pro peak output pricing jumping from $0.87 to $3.96 per million tokens and V4-Flash rising from... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/deepseek-built-a-claude-code-rival-then-quadrupled-its-prices-vjgzegrqy og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/vJGZEGRqY.png og:image:alt: DeepSeek built a Claude Code rival, then quadrupled its prices og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # DeepSeek built a Claude Code rival, then quadrupled its prices **[The Next Web](https://daily.dev/sources/tnw)** · 6 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary DeepSeek raised API prices sharply from 16 August, with V4-Pro peak output pricing jumping from $0.87 to $3.96 per million tokens and V4-Flash rising from $0.28 to $1.32. The hike lands alongside DeepSeek Harness v0.1, an open-architecture agentic coding tool positioned as a rival to Anthropic's Claude Code, letting developers swap in models from any vendor. Separately, the V4-Pro-0813 build exited preview as general availability, but a website claim of 'significantly enhanced agent capabilities' was quietly deleted after developers reported underwhelming results outside narrow benchmarks like cybersecurity. Despite the fourfold increase, DeepSeek's pricing remains well below rivals like Kimi K3 ($15) and Anthropic's Fable 5 ($50). Bloomberg ties the price move to DeepSeek's push toward profitability ahead of a planned IPO, with the company recently valued around $71bn. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How much did DeepSeek raise its API prices for V4-Pro starting August 16? DeepSeek raised peak pricing for a million output tokens through DeepSeek-V4-Pro from $0.87 to $3.96, more than quadrupling the rate, effective from August 16. V4-Flash rose from $0.28 to $1.32. Off-peak rates are half the new peak figures, at $1.98 and $0.66 respectively, meaning even the discounted off-peak rate for V4-Pro exceeds the old undiscounted peak price. _Track LLM API pricing shifts like this one on daily.dev before they blow up your inference budget._ ### What is DeepSeek Harness and how does it compare to Claude Code? DeepSeek Harness v0.1 is a developer preview of an agentic coding scaffold released by DeepSeek, occupying the same layer as Anthropic's Claude Code: it reads files, edits code, browses the web, and keeps working until a task finishes. Unlike Claude Code, DeepSeek says its harness uses an open architecture letting users plug in models from any company, not just its own. _Compare emerging agentic coding harnesses like this one on daily.dev before picking your team's tooling._ ### How does DeepSeek-V4-Pro perform on coding benchmarks compared to Claude Opus 4.6 and Gemini 3.1 Pro? DeepSeek's own model card puts V4-Pro at maximum reasoning setting at 80.6% on SWE-bench Verified, level with Gemini 3.1 Pro and just behind Claude Opus 4.6's 80.8%. It trails elsewhere: 67.9% on Terminal Bench 2.0 versus GPT-5.4's 75.1%, and 37.7% on Humanity's Last Exam versus Gemini 3.1 Pro's 44.4%. These figures are vendor-reported and unreplicated by independent evaluators. _Weigh vendor-reported coding benchmarks like these on daily.dev when deciding which model powers your agent._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [DeepSeek made its 75% discount permanent. The AI price war just escalated.](https://daily.dev/posts/deepseek-made-its-75-discount-permanent-the-ai-price-war-just-escalated--xkptsmavk) · The Next Web · 4 upvotes · 0 comments - [DeepSeek’s steep V4-Pro price cut escalates AI pricing war](https://daily.dev/posts/deepseek-s-steep-v4-pro-price-cut-escalates-ai-pricing-war-ssyvrmhnt) · InfoWorld · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [OpenCode \+ DeepSeek V4: The Budget Combo That Doesn't Feel Like a Budget Combo](https://daily.dev/posts/opencode-deepseek-v4-the-budget-combo-that-doesn-t-feel-like-a-budget-combo-d9ybqvwwf) · Playful Programming · 3 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#llm](https://daily.dev/tags/llm), [#ai-agents](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-agents), [#anthropic](https://daily.dev/tags/anthropic), [#claude-code](https://daily.dev/tags/claude-code), [#deepseek](https://daily.dev/tags/deepseek) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/deepseek-built-a-claude-code-rival-then-quadrupled-its-prices-vjgzegrqy) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"DeepSeek built a Claude Code rival, then quadrupled its prices","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/deepseek-built-a-claude-code-rival-then-quadrupled-its-prices-vjgzegrqy","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/deepseek-built-a-claude-code-rival-then-quadrupled-its-prices-vjgzegrqy"},"datePublished":"2026-08-13T16:38:53.055Z","dateModified":"2026-09-13T19:57:03.777Z","description":"DeepSeek raised API prices sharply from 16 August, with V4-Pro peak output pricing jumping from $0.87 to $3.96 per million tokens and V4-Flash rising from...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/ae2dfb78b6580700907b5c04d1867c58?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/ae2dfb78b6580700907b5c04d1867c58?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"The Next Web","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"The Next Web","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/tnw","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/tnw"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/deepseek-built-a-claude-code-rival-then-quadrupled-its-prices-vjgzegrqy","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"llm,ai-agents,anthropic,claude-code,deepseek","timeRequired":"PT6M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Next Web","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/tnw"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"DeepSeek built a Claude Code rival, then quadrupled its prices"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/deepseek-built-a-claude-code-rival-then-quadrupled-its-prices-vjgzegrqy#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"How much did DeepSeek raise its API prices for V4-Pro starting August 16?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"DeepSeek raised peak pricing for a million output tokens through DeepSeek-V4-Pro from $0.87 to $3.96, more than quadrupling the rate, effective from August 16. V4-Flash rose from $0.28 to $1.32. Off-peak rates are half the new peak figures, at $1.98 and $0.66 respectively, meaning even the discounted off-peak rate for V4-Pro exceeds the old undiscounted peak price. Track LLM API pricing shifts like this one on daily.dev before they blow up your inference budget."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"What is DeepSeek Harness and how does it compare to Claude Code?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"DeepSeek Harness v0.1 is a developer preview of an agentic coding scaffold released by DeepSeek, occupying the same layer as Anthropic's Claude Code: it reads files, edits code, browses the web, and keeps working until a task finishes. Unlike Claude Code, DeepSeek says its harness uses an open architecture letting users plug in models from any company, not just its own. Compare emerging agentic coding harnesses like this one on daily.dev before picking your team's tooling."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"How does DeepSeek-V4-Pro perform on coding benchmarks compared to Claude Opus 4.6 and Gemini 3.1 Pro?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"DeepSeek's own model card puts V4-Pro at maximum reasoning setting at 80.6% on SWE-bench Verified, level with Gemini 3.1 Pro and just behind Claude Opus 4.6's 80.8%. It trails elsewhere: 67.9% on Terminal Bench 2.0 versus GPT-5.4's 75.1%, and 37.7% on Humanity's Last Exam versus Gemini 3.1 Pro's 44.4%. These figures are vendor-reported and unreplicated by independent evaluators. Weigh vendor-reported coding benchmarks like these on daily.dev when deciding which model powers your agent."}}]} ```