❯ DeepSeek goes down for nearly five hours and refunds seven days of API spending as credits

The outageAccording to Guangming Online, DeepSeek’s API service was unavailable from 8:11 to 13:04 Beijing time on October 15, about five hours. DeepSeek then issued a service-restoration and compensation notice.

The compensationAccounts get back their full API spending from October 8 to 14, a seven-day window, as credits paid automatically and drawn down first on future API billing. DeepSeek said it will thoroughly review and fix service stability, mapping and removing single points of dependency to prevent a repeat.

Tied to usageBecause refunds follow the prior week’s actual spending, heavy users get more, which is why the amounts users posted in online communities varied widely. Businesses relying on the API value a full, usage-based refund over a token gesture, but what matters most is that the outage does not recur.

▮ SIGNALAPIs are now production infrastructure for many companies, so model providers compete on uptime and accountability as well as price and capability.