DeepSeek vs OpenRouter
Same workloads, both price lists, refreshed daily. On shared line items today: DeepSeek is cheaper on 2 of 6 shared models (input or output price), OpenRouter on 2.
DeepSeek
Frontier-class reasoning and coding models at a fraction of Western lab prices, with off-peak discounts and open weights for self-hosting..
- Extreme price/performance
- Off-peak pricing windows
- Open weights available
OpenRouter
One API key for 340+ models across every major provider, with automatic failover and pass-through pricing. The fastest way to hedge provider risk or A/B models without new integrations.
- 340+ models, one integration
- Automatic provider failover
- Pass-through pricing, small platform fee
Shared models, priced by both
List prices refreshed 2026-10-08 ยท input $/1M tokens| Model | DeepSeek in/out | OpenRouter in/out | Cheaper input |
|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek V3.2 | $0.280 / $0.400 | $0.280 / $0.420 | tie |
| DeepSeek V3 | $0.280 / $0.420 | $0.257 / $1.03 | OpenRouter |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | $0.300 / $1.20 | $0.030 / $1.28 | OpenRouter |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp | $0.300 / $1.20 | $0.216 / $0.647 | OpenRouter |
| DeepSeek R1 | $0.550 / $2.19 | $0.700 / $2.50 | DeepSeek |
| DeepSeek V4 Pro | $1.32 / $3.96 | $0.209 / $0.418 | OpenRouter |
Cheaper-on-count is a tally of listed prices, not a quality verdict: throughput, reliability and quantization differ between providers. Disclosure.