All comparisons · Prices checked 2026-10-01
DeepSeek V4 Pro vs Claude Sonnet 5.5: API cost comparison
For a typical chatbot reply, DeepSeek V4 Pro costs $0.0036 and Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs $0.0091 per request: DeepSeek V4 Pro is 2.6× cheaper. DeepSeek V4 Pro is cheaper in every workload below.
API prices
| DeepSeek V4 Pro | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | DeepSeek | Anthropic |
| Input / 1M tokens | $1.32 | $2 |
| Output / 1M tokens | $3.96 | $10 |
| Output vs input price | 3.0× | 5.0× |
| Context window | 1M tokens | 1M tokens |
| Tokens for the same English text | baseline (GPT o200k count) | ~130% of GPT's count (estimate) |
Cost by workload
| Workload (per 1,000 requests) | DeepSeek V4 Pro | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chatbot reply short question plus some chat history · 1,500 in / 400 out | $3.56 | $9.10 | DeepSeek V4 Pro 2.6× cheaper |
| Document Q&A (RAG) retrieved passages plus a question · 8,000 in / 500 out | $12.54 | $27.30 | DeepSeek V4 Pro 2.2× cheaper |
| Coding agent step large working context, short edit · 25,000 in / 800 out | $36.17 | $75.40 | DeepSeek V4 Pro 2.1× cheaper |
| Summarize a long report long input, short summary · 20,000 in / 300 out | $27.59 | $55.90 | DeepSeek V4 Pro 2.0× cheaper |
| Write an article short brief, long draft · 800 in / 2,000 out | $8.98 | $28.08 | DeepSeek V4 Pro 3.1× cheaper |
DeepSeek V4 Pro is cheaper on both input and output, so it costs less for every kind of request. The gap is 2.0× on input and 3.3× on output once the tokenizer difference is included.
Same text, different token counts. Each company uses its own tokenizer. By our estimate Claude Sonnet 5.5 counts about 30% more tokens than DeepSeek V4 Pro for the same English text, and the costs above already include that. Paste your own prompt into the token counter to see both counts.
Monthly cost
| Monthly volume | DeepSeek V4 Pro | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
|---|---|---|
| 10,000 chatbot replies / month | $35.64 | $91.00 |
| 100,000 chatbot replies / month | $356 | $910 |
| 1,000,000 chatbot replies / month | $3,564 | $9,100 |
Calculate your own
Enter your typical request size and volume.
Token counts are for English text measured with GPT's tokenizer; each model's own tokenizer difference is applied automatically.
Questions
Which is cheaper, DeepSeek V4 Pro or Claude Sonnet 5.5?
For a typical chatbot reply (1,500 input and 400 output tokens), DeepSeek V4 Pro costs $0.0036 and Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs $0.0091 per request, so DeepSeek V4 Pro is 2.6× cheaper. DeepSeek V4 Pro is cheaper in every workload below.
How much do DeepSeek V4 Pro and Claude Sonnet 5.5 cost per million tokens?
DeepSeek V4 Pro costs $1.32 per 1M input tokens and $3.96 per 1M output tokens. Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs $2 input and $10 output. Prices checked 2026-10-01.
Do both models count the same text as the same number of tokens?
No. Each model family has its own tokenizer, so the same text can be a different number of tokens. The costs on this page already include that difference (estimated from GPT's tokenizer).
Related comparisons
- GPT-6 Sol vs Claude Sonnet 5.5
- Gemini 3.1 Pro vs Claude Sonnet 5.5
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Claude Opus 5.5
- Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Claude Sonnet 5.5
- DeepSeek V4 Pro vs GPT-6 Sol
- Kimi K3 vs Claude Sonnet 5.5
Paste a real prompt to see its exact tokens and cost on DeepSeek V4 Pro, Claude Sonnet 5.5 and 30+ other models.
Open the token counter →Standard API list prices, short-context tier, no caching or batch discounts. Prices change; check each provider's pricing page before large jobs.