❯ DeepSeek cuts Flash pricing from noon September 10, with cached input at RMB0.02 per million tokens and peak rates still double

Effective tomorrowAccording to the platform notice and domestic media reports, DeepSeek will change Flash pricing at noon Beijing time on September 10. Off-peak rates per million tokens will be RMB0.02 for cache-hit input, RMB1 for cache-miss input and RMB4 for output. These are separate billing categories, not one uniform call price.

Uneven reductionsComparing old and new prices compiled by IT Home, cache-hit input falls from RMB0.05 to RMB0.02, a 60% cut; cache-miss input falls from RMB1.5 to RMB1, about one-third lower; and output falls from RMB4.5 to RMB4, about 11% lower. Tasks with long outputs may therefore save substantially less than cache-heavy workloads.

Peak surchargePeak hours remain 9 a.m. to noon and 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays, in Beijing time, at twice the off-peak price. The corresponding rates are RMB0.04, RMB2 and RMB8 per million tokens. Deferrable batch processing can be scheduled differently from interactive work; real-time tasks cannot be budgeted solely at the lowest rates.

Task-level billFor batch document processing and agent applications, cache reuse, the input-output mix and execution time jointly determine cost. After the cut, models should be compared by total spending to complete the same task, not just cached-input prices. The V4.1 Flash beta and this pricing announcement are separate; the new rates do not establish a production-release date.

▪ SIGNALCaching receives the largest cut, but actual savings depend jointly on the cache-hit rate, output length and share of work performed at peak times.