LLM API pricing · verified June 2026
LLM / DeepSeek alternatives

The best DeepSeek API alternatives in 2026

Looking for a DeepSeek API alternative? We priced every provider we track on the same workload, so you can compare on real cost — not marketing. The lowest-cost alternative to DeepSeek is Mistral ($23/mo at its cheapest — versus DeepSeek's $17.19). Ranked by cost, with context window and head-to-head links below.

Prices verified June 2026 · changes logged in the changelog

DeepSeek alternatives, ranked by cost

Every alternative provider priced on the same example workload (chatbot, 100k requests/mo, 70% cached). “Cheapest” is each provider's lowest-cost model; “top” is its flagship. Lowest cheapest-price is highlighted.

ProviderCheapest ≈ $/moTop model ≈ $/moMax contextHead-to-head
Mistral11 models · cheapest Ministral 3 (3B) $23$82256k tokens DeepSeek vs Mistral →
OpenAI5 models · cheapest GPT-5.4 nano $52.3$1,2701M tokens DeepSeek vs OpenAI →
Google (Gemini)4 models · cheapest Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite $63.5$5081M tokens DeepSeek vs Gemini →
xAI (Grok)2 models · cheapest Grok Build 0.1 $148$1781M tokens DeepSeek vs Grok →
Anthropic4 models · cheapest Claude Haiku 4.5 $224$2,2401M tokens DeepSeek vs Claude →

≈ $/mo from the same engine as the calculator. See DeepSeek pricing in detail or the full cheapest LLM API ranking.

Is DeepSeek actually the right price for you?
Put DeepSeek next to every alternative at your volume, token mix and cache share.
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All 28 models → OpenAI pricing → Anthropic pricing → Gemini pricing → DeepSeek pricing → Grok pricing → Mistral pricing → Cheapest LLM API → Open calculator →

Frequently asked questions

It depends what you're optimising for. On cost, the lowest-priced alternative we track is Mistral ($23/mo at its cheapest). For a flagship-class alternative, compare the “top model” column above. Use the calculator to rank them for your exact workload.
At its cheapest model, Mistral is the lowest-cost alternative to DeepSeek we track ($23/mo on the example workload). See the ranked table above for the full order.
DeepSeek's cheapest model runs about $17.19/mo on our example workload. Each alternative in the table is priced the same way, so the numbers are directly comparable. Head-to-head pages break each pairing down model by model.
Every per-token rate is taken from each provider's official pricing and verified by hand (June 2026); the monthly figure is computed by our cost engine. Changes are logged in the price changelog.