DeepSeek announced on May 23, 2026, that its V4-Pro AI model API price will permanently be set at 25% of its original price after the existing 75% discount period ends on May 31, 2026 [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. The company said the discounted rates are approximately 0.025 RMB per million input tokens (cache hit), 3 RMB per million input tokens (cache miss), and 6 RMB per million output tokens [1, 3, 4, 5, 7].
The V4-Pro model, launched on April 24, 2026, offers advanced capabilities including handling ultra-long contexts spanning millions of words and leads Chinese AI model benchmarks in performance [1, 3, 5]. It replaced earlier versions with improved efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
Independent benchmarking shows DeepSeek’s V4-Pro ranks first globally in cost efficiency or "bang-for-buck" after the price cut, with a cost of about 268 USD to run the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index benchmark [8, 3, 5, 6, 9]. By comparison, leading US models such as OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 and Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.7 cost roughly 12 and 19 times more, respectively, to complete the same benchmarks [3, 5, 6, 9]. Artificial Analysis said the price cut places V4-Pro "at the global frontier for cost-efficiency based on intelligence per dollar" [8].
DeepSeek’s competitive pricing partly reflects its use of Huawei Ascend 950 chips instead of Nvidia GPUs, helping control computing costs [1, 7]. Other China-based AI models like MiniMax M2.7 and Xiaomi MiMo-V2.5 Pro have also shown strong cost-performance competitiveness internationally [3, 5, 6].
DeepSeek is simultaneously reportedly pursuing a major funding round, targeting between 500 billion and 700 billion RMB (approximately 70-75 billion USD), which would be among the largest single financings in Chinese AI history [1, 4]. The exact target remains unclear due to differing reports.
The permanent 75% cut comes after the initial discount was launched on April 26, 2026, with the original discounted prices set to end on May 31 [1, 3, 5]. DeepSeek said it will "continue to implement the 75% discount for the V4-Pro" beyond the planned cutoff [1].
The permanent price reduction and upcoming funding round mark key steps expected to reshape competition in the AI model market, as Chinese firms push aggressive pricing against pricier US models.
The price cut for the V4-Pro API officially takes effect on May 31, 2026, when the permanent 25% price level replaces the temporary discount period [2, 3, 4, 5].
