DeepSeek unifies weekend pricing to off-peak rates from August 23
DeepSeek API peak/valley rules adjusted from 00:00 on August 23, with Saturdays and Sundays unified at off-peak rates, just 6 days after peak/valley pricing was introduced.
From 00:00 on August 23, DeepSeek API platform adjusted its peak/valley pricing rules, with Saturdays and Sundays unified at off-peak rates. The change comes just 6 days after DeepSeek raised prices on August 17 by introducing the peak/valley mechanism.
Under the new rules, flagship V4-Pro weekend output prices are halved compared to weekday peak hours. The market widely interprets this as a move by DeepSeek to balance compute load amid dual competition from domestic open-source models and overseas low-priced alternatives. API calls made before the new rules took effect are settled at the original rate.
DeepSeek simultaneously confirmed that the experimental vision model V4-Flash-Vision-Exp remains free to use until August 27, allowing developers to continue calling its multimodal vision capabilities at zero cost.