LLM

DeepSeek

DeepSeek-V3 / R1 deliver near-frontier reasoning and code at a fraction of OpenAI / Anthropic API rates. Free chat tier, very cheap API. The default 'cheap LLM' for cost-sensitive automations.

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The pitch

Frontier-grade reasoning at 1/10th the cost

Pricing

Free chat · API ~$0.14/M input, $0.28/M output

Used in 1 stack

Cheap bulk LLM automation

Role: Production volume calls

$5/mo

Alternatives

Claude

Frontier LLM with the best long-form writing voice

$20/mo Pro

ChatGPT

OpenAI's general-purpose chat + GPT-4o

$20/mo Plus