DeepSeek-V4-Pro vs Gemini 2.5 Pro
DeepSeek-V4-Pro is cheaper for every workload modelled here.
List prices checked
Specifications and rates
| Property | DeepSeek-V4-Pro | Gemini 2.5 Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Input per 1M | $0.435 | $1.25 |
| Output per 1M | $0.870 | $10.00 |
| Cached input per 1M | $0.0036 | $0.310 |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.544 | $3.44 |
| Context window | 1M | 1M |
| Max output | 384K | 66K |
| Inputs accepted | text | text, image, audio, video |
Source: DeepSeek pricing (August 2026) · Google pricing (May 2026). Published list prices only — committed-use discounts, regional variation, and per-request charges are not included. Not yet independently re-checked against the vendor’s page.
Monthly cost by workload
Identical token volumes through both rate cards. Output-heavy profiles are where the ranking flips.
| Workload | DeepSeek-V4-Pro | Gemini 2.5 Pro | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| In-app chat assistantA support or help assistant handling a few thousand conversations a month, with short prompts and short answers. | $13 | $75 | DeepSeek-V4-Prosaves $62/mo (83%) |
| RAG over documentsRetrieval-augmented answering where each request stuffs several retrieved passages into the prompt, so input dominates. | $144 | $525 | DeepSeek-V4-Prosaves $381/mo (73%) |
| Coding agentAn agentic loop that reads files and writes patches, generating heavy output and re-sending large context on every turn. | $261 | $1,500 | DeepSeek-V4-Prosaves $1,239/mo (83%) |
What each one is for
DeepSeek-V4-Pro
by DeepSeek
Frontier-class reasoning at roughly a fifth of Western frontier pricing, with a million-token window. The trade-offs are Chinese data residency, a 500-request concurrency cap, and a price rise the vendor has already announced.
Gemini 2.5 Pro
by Google
A million-token context window with native video and audio input, priced at frontier-model rates below 200k tokens and at a higher tier above it — a detail that surprises people modelling long-context costs.
Common questions
- Is DeepSeek-V4-Pro or Gemini 2.5 Pro cheaper in 2026?
- DeepSeek-V4-Pro, for every workload modelled here. On a blended 3:1 basis it costs $0.544 per million tokens against Gemini 2.5 Pro's $3.44.
- Which has the larger context window?
- Gemini 2.5 Pro, at 1M tokens against 1M. A larger window only helps if you can afford to fill it — the cost of one full-context request is in the table above.
- Which is cheaper for output-heavy work like agents?
- DeepSeek-V4-Pro, at $0.870 per million output tokens against $10.00. Reasoning tokens bill as output, so for agentic loops this axis usually decides the invoice regardless of what the input rates look like.
- What is not included in these figures?
- Batch-processing discounts, fine-tuning, long-context surcharges above a provider's standard tier, and any enterprise agreement. These are published pay-as-you-go list prices, checked against each provider's own pricing page on the date shown.
- Is switching from Gemini 2.5 Pro to DeepSeek-V4-Pro worth it?
- On price alone it is about 84% cheaper on a blended basis. Whether that survives contact with your workload depends on output quality and on retry rate — a cheaper model that needs two attempts is not cheaper. Model the specific volumes in the calculator before you migrate.