DeepSeek launches V4-Pro, its most advanced model that rivals Kimi K3 on some benchmarks but is priced much lower, at $0.435/1M input and $0.87/1M output tokens

Chinese AI developer DeepSeek on Wednesday launched the official version of its most advanced model, V4-Pro …

The Information 2026-08-13 Juro Osawa

Context & Ripple Effects

DeepSeek first put V4 Pro into preview while acknowledging a performance gap to the state of the art; it subsequently made a 75% API price reduction permanent. The official release keeps the model’s commercial case centered on a low listed token rate rather than on a claim of across-the-board benchmark leadership.

The launch also follows DeepSeek’s stated plan for substantial price increases across its AI services, creating a sharper distinction between the V4-Pro offer and the company’s broader pricing trajectory. An earlier comparison found V4-Flash far cheaper per test than Kimi K3 and other named models, reinforcing cost as a recurring DeepSeek positioning tool.

First-order effects

Developers evaluating Kimi K3 gain a lower-priced V4-Pro option for workloads where the reported benchmark parity applies, at $0.435 per million input tokens and $0.87 per million output tokens.
DeepSeek moves V4-Pro from preview into its official lineup while retaining the price level it had previously said would be permanent.

Second-order effects

Kimi faces pressure to justify its pricing through performance outside the benchmarks where DeepSeek claims parity, or to respond on API economics.
Enterprise buyers have more reason to evaluate models on task-specific output quality and total usage cost rather than select a provider solely by flagship status; the prior per-test cost comparison makes that procurement frame concrete.

Third-order effects

If DeepSeek can repeatedly pair near-peer results on selected benchmarks with lower API rates, AI model competition will increasingly segment around workload-level value rather than a single frontier-model ranking.
DeepSeek’s mix of permanent V4-Pro cuts and planned service-wide increases suggests that listed token prices will remain a variable procurement input, favoring buyers able to switch models as economics change.

The trend: AI model procurement is shifting toward task-level performance-per-dollar comparisons as lower-cost providers challenge premium models on selected benchmarks.

Discussion

@sheriyuo Xiuyu Li on x
So AA 53 for V4 Pro 0813 may be inaccurate. 55-56 seems more convincing 👀 [image]
@teortaxestex @teortaxestex on x
Really weird things going on with V4-Pro-0813 release I will withhold judgement until they admit it's rolled out and post their own evals in English. Currently, the WeChat leak does not match AA even directionally (-2.7% for Flash, -9% for Pro). I doubt this is their best. [image…
@teortaxestex @teortaxestex on x
V4-Pro-0813 massively surpasses 0731 on goonbench (internal) one niche already secured
@arena @arena on x
Big news: DeepSeek-V4-Pro (Max) by @deepseek_ai is coming in around ~#8 overall (#2 among open models) in the Code Arena: WebDev! At 1607 pts, this places it after GPT-5.6 Sol (xHigh)(1622 pts), and makes it the second best open model after Kimi K3 (Max) (1674 pts). Note: this [i…
@goodhunt Hunter Bown on x
for some reason the chinese internet hates the new ds v4 pro I don't get it
@ns123abc Nik on x
reminder that deepseek made NO announcement for the new V4 Pro anywhere on social media because they are ashamed of it >scores only 1 point higher than V4 Flash [image]
@cheatyyyy @cheatyyyy on x
it's not a bad model, it is unfortunately definitely behind the frontier by a solid margin, but it feels a lot better than v4 pro preview to use, definitely past the opus 4.6 to opus 4.7 barrier for long tasks, much more reliable and the model has a good intuition. gpt-shaped.
@arena @arena on x
DeepSeek-V4-Pro (Max) by @deepseek_ai is expected to shift the Pareto curve for Code Arena: WebDev with this upcoming open weights model. It currently sits at ~#8 overall (AutoEval) at 1607 pts. Priced at $0.435 input/ $0.87 output per MTokens, it outperforms models beyond its [i…
@deepseek_ai @deepseek_ai on x
API pricing update 💰 With the V4 lineup release, we're updating our API pricing and introducing peak and off-peak rates. Off-peak rates are 50% lower than peak, enabling more flexible workload scheduling. 📉 New pricing takes effect at 16:00 UTC, Aug 16, 2026 🕒 [image]
@thegenioo Hamza on x
DeepSeek has made the official announcement for V4 Pro (already out since yesterday) They have also made the pricing change (higher now) [image]
@deepseek_ai @deepseek_ai on x
We're launching DeepSeek-V4-Pro today! 🚀 🔷 Major Agent upgrades with strong production gains! 🔷 Flexible reasoning effort for V4-Pro & V4-Flash: low for simple tasks, high for daily Agent workflows, max for complex tasks. 🔷 Native OpenAI Responses API support, optimized for [imag…
@aibattle_ @aibattle_ on x
New DeepSeek peak / off-peak pricing is live on the docs page. The new pricing will take effect on August 16 [image]
@eliebakouch Elie on x
new deepseek v4 pro is now open weight on hugging face (mit license) “v4” is a bit misleading, previous model was only a preview and this one has way more training behind it, feels more like a v4.5 also very excited for the deepseek harness release https://huggingface.co/... [ima…
@cgtwts @cgtwts on x
“Sir... a new DeepSeek model just dropped. It reportedly delivers Fable 5-level performance at 57x cheaper cost”. [image]
@scaling01 @scaling01 on x
DeepSeek has been very disappointing this year V4 came much later than expected and was smaller than expected. The price hikes also hurt. They are currently 4th or 5th place in China
@scaling01 @scaling01 on x
I still don't see any weights for DeepSeek V4 and the pricing update is really bad [image]
@kimmonismus @kimmonismus on x
DeepSeek-V4-Pro GA officially announced! Yesterday's leaked benchmarks were real: The model now supports adjustable reasoning effort: low for simple tasks, high for everyday agent work, and max for complex problems. V4-Flash gets the same control. DeepSeek also added native [imag…
r/LocalLLaMA r on reddit
DeepSeek: We're launching DeepSeek-V4-Pro today!
@scaling01 @scaling01 on x
DeepSeek is washed but their distillation seems good
@deepseek_ai @deepseek_ai on x
🧩 DeepSeek Harness v0.1 is now available in Developer Preview! 🔹 We're opening it up to developers building agent harnesses worldwide and open-sourcing the codebase in MIT license. 🔹 Powered by the Cordis meta-framework, DeepSeek Harness is an agent harness built around one
@scaling01 @scaling01 on x
today is a good day: DeepSeek-V4-Pro Grok 4.6 Qwen3.8-2.4T and maybe something from OpenAI
@lentils80 @lentils80 on x
Deepseek V4 Pro GA scoring only 1 point higher than Flash on Artificial Analysis while being like 5 times larger is crazy work [image]
@zephyr_z9 @zephyr_z9 on x
IMO, they have finally stabilized the new V4 arch and are probably preparing for a larger 3T-4T V4 Max or V5 I don't think it makes a lot of sense to spend resources on V4 Pro post training
@hosseeb Haseeb on x
Wow. @deepseek_ai's V4-Pro just launched via API and it looks incredible. This thing costs $0.87/M out. Opus is $25/M out. It's almost 30x cheaper than Opus! Benchmarks looks like it's somewhere between Opus 4.8 and Opus 5 quality. Absolutely incredible deflation in frontier [ima…
@openrouter @openrouter on x
DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 is live on OpenRouter. @deepseek_ai reports large agent gains over V4 Pro Preview: DeepSWE 62.7 (+49.9), CyberGym 83.3 (+30.6), NL2Repo 61.5 (+23.0), and Terminal Bench 2.1 87.9 (+15.8) More providers coming online soon Use it now: https://openrouter.ai/...
@sakurayukiai Sakura Yuki on x
1M context and a 384K max output turn DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 into a scheduler puzzle. Does the provider reserve KV capacity against the full cap, or allocate blocks lazily and risk eviction when several generations refuse to stop?
@andrewcurran_ Andrew Curran on x
As yet unverified DeepSeek V4 Pro benchmarks from WeChat. Seismic if accurate. [image]
@altryne Alex Volkov on x
New DeepSeek V4 0813 dropped on @huggingface , my @bot sent an alert to our slack team, and the team said “he hallucinated the link” But @bot was good! Apparently @deepseek_ai published the weights (with MIT license!) and then took them down!? [image]
@eliebakouch Elie on x
deepseek harness was heavily developed using codex, at least ~20% of commits and PRs are coming from codex worktrees [image]
r/LocalLLaMA r on reddit
Deepseek Harness is Up!
r/DeepSeek r on reddit
DeepSeek Harness is out !
@ns123abc Nik on x
🚨 DeepSeek new API prices just dropped >~2x the price hike on OFF-PEAK hours >peak hours are 2x on top of that >3-4X higher than what you pay right now poors in shambles [image]
@jun_song Jun Song on x
Official announcement from Deepseek. Also API price got updated. $0.66/$1.98 input/output Testing it right now if it's a different model from yesterday.
@cheatyyyy @cheatyyyy on x
DeepSeek V4 Pricing has been 2x'd for off-peak and 4x'd for Peak hours on the official API [image]
r/LocalLLaMA r on reddit
GitHub - deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness

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