DeepSeek’s V4-Flash is the least expensive to operate among widely known artificial intelligence models tested globally, Reuters reported on Monday, citing research firm Artificial Analysis.
Artificial Analysis estimated that the Chinese startup’s model costs an average of 3 cents per benchmark test. That makes it more than 100 times cheaper to run than Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5, which costs an estimated $3.15 per test.
DeepSeek Returns to Its Low-Cost Strategy
DeepSeek officially released V4-Flash on Friday as it seeks to regain momentum by offering low-cost alternatives to major AI models, according to Reuters.
Sources told Reuters that the company is also preparing for a potential initial public offering.
DeepSeek attracted global attention in early 2025 when its R1 model became widely popular. Its release triggered a selloff in global technology stocks and raised questions about the large amounts US companies were spending on artificial intelligence.
V4-Flash Pricing
Artificial Analysis said DeepSeek charges $0.14 per million input tokens and $0.28 per million output tokens for V4-Flash. A token is a unit of data used to measure AI usage.
The research firm estimated that V4-Flash costs 3 cents on average to complete a benchmark test. By comparison, Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3 costs 86 cents, OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol costs $1.86, and Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 costs $3.15 per test.
Artificial Analysis said the test-based comparison offers a more realistic measure of value than listed token prices alone because it considers how much data each model must process and generate to complete a task.
A model with a low listed price may still cost more to operate if it requires significantly more steps to produce an answer.
DeepSeek Faces Growing Competition
Reuters reported that DeepSeek once attracted most of the attention surrounding China’s AI development but quickly faced growing competition from domestic rivals.
These competitors include startups Moonshot, MiniMax and Z.AI, as well as technology companies ByteDance and Alibaba.
The Chinese companies are competing with US technology firms for global adoption by targeting businesses seeking less expensive ways to deploy AI at scale.
V4-Flash Benchmark Performance
Artificial Analysis gave DeepSeek’s V4-Flash a score of 50 out of 100 on its Intelligence Index, which combines results from nine benchmarks covering coding, reasoning and workplace-style assignments.
The model received the same score as Google’s Gemini 3.6 Flash. It scored one point below Meta’s Muse Spark 1.1 and GLM-5.2 from Z.AI, which is also known as Zhipu.
Moonshot’s Kimi K3 scored 57. Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5 and Claude Fable 5, along with OpenAI’s GPT-5.6, scored at least nine points higher than V4-Flash, according to Artificial Analysis.
DeepSeek Preparing V4-Pro
DeepSeek is also developing a more powerful version of the model called V4-Pro. However, the company has not announced an official release date.
Separately, Alibaba unveiled Qwen3.8-Max on Monday, describing it as its largest and most capable AI model so far.
Reuters reported that the Alibaba model is not far behind the size of an AI model released by Chinese rival Moonshot AI last month.
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