DeepSeek R1 pricing for code review

Quick start

Call DeepSeek R1 with the OpenAI Python SDK pointed at api.deepseek.com:

import os
from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://api.deepseek.com/v1",
    api_key=os.environ["DEEPSEEK_API_KEY"],
)
response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="deepseek-r1",
    max_tokens=2000,
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Your prompt here"}]
)
# Cost: ~$0.007130 per call at standard rates
# Input:  $0.55/MTok
# Output: $2.19/MTok

How DeepSeek R1 compares on cost

Per-call cost for all models scoring 50+ on code review benchmarks. Hover for details.

Highest-quality affordable option: Claude Sonnet 5 at $0.0300/call (4.2x the cost, 96/100 quality). DeepSeek R1 is already the cheapest choice for code review.

What drives code review cost

Review is input-heavy in a way generation is not: the diff or file goes in whole, and structured feedback comes back short. That flips the usual optimization: input rate and cache discounts matter more than output rate. Reviewing the same repository repeatedly means the surrounding context is identical call over call, which is exactly the shape prompt caching is designed for.

For DeepSeek R1 specifically, that means output tokens cost 4.0x more than input, at $2.19 vs $0.55 per MTok. At this use case’s 5,000/2,000 token split, output accounts for 61% of the $0.007130 per-call cost.

DeepSeek R1 quality benchmarks for code review

Benchmark data for code review is pending for DeepSeek R1. Test against your own evaluation suite before moving to production.

Benchmark data is not yet available for DeepSeek R1. We recommend testing against your own evaluation criteria.

About DeepSeek R1

Prices are off-peak rates from api-docs.deepseek.com (read 2026-10-11). Peak-hour prices are 2x the listed input and output rates — Tokeven does not model time-of-day tiers; off-peak is used as the base. Cache hit: $0.14/MTok input. No batch discount published. Reasoning model: output includes chain-of-thought tokens. Not yet benchmarked, so never recommended.

Other models from DeepSeek

You can compare DeepSeek R1 head-to-head against any other model on our model comparison pages, or track how pricing has changed over time on the pricing history tracker.

Frequently asked questions