DeepSeek-V4-Pro vs Grok 4
DeepSeek-V4-Pro is cheaper for every workload modelled here.
List prices checked
Specifications and rates
| Property | DeepSeek-V4-Pro | Grok 4 |
|---|---|---|
| Input per 1M | $0.435 | $3.00 |
| Output per 1M | $0.870 | $15.00 |
| Cached input per 1M | $0.0036 | $0.750 |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.544 | $6.00 |
| Context window | 1M | 256K |
| Max output | 384K | 64K |
| Inputs accepted | text | text, image |
Source: DeepSeek pricing (August 2026) · xAI 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 | Grok 4 | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| In-app chat assistantA support or help assistant handling a few thousand conversations a month, with short prompts and short answers. | $13 | $135 | DeepSeek-V4-Prosaves $122/mo (90%) |
| RAG over documentsRetrieval-augmented answering where each request stuffs several retrieved passages into the prompt, so input dominates. | $144 | $1,125 | DeepSeek-V4-Prosaves $981/mo (87%) |
| Coding agentAn agentic loop that reads files and writes patches, generating heavy output and re-sending large context on every turn. | $261 | $2,700 | DeepSeek-V4-Prosaves $2,439/mo (90%) |
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.
Grok 4
by xAI
xAI's flagship, priced to match Claude Sonnet exactly, with a large context window and live access to posts on X as a differentiator.
Common questions
- Is DeepSeek-V4-Pro or Grok 4 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 Grok 4's $6.00.
- Which has the larger context window?
- DeepSeek-V4-Pro, at 1M tokens against 256K. 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 $15.00. 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 Grok 4 to DeepSeek-V4-Pro worth it?
- On price alone it is about 91% 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.