DeepSeek vs Moonshot AI
API pricing and model line-up compared · Prices checked 12 August 2026
DeepSeek has the lower entry price: DeepSeek-R1-Distill-8B at $0.109 per million tokens blended, against Moonshot v1 8k at $0.120 on Moonshot AI.
At the top of the range Moonshot AI goes higher: Kimi K3 at $6.60 per million tokens against DeepSeek-V4-Pro at $2.26. DeepSeek offers more choice in our catalogue: 11 text models against 5. Moonshot AI offers the larger maximum context window, 1,049,000 tokens against 1,000,000.
Catalogue side by side
| Metric | DeepSeek | Moonshot AI |
|---|---|---|
| Models tracked | 11 | 5 |
| Cheapest model | DeepSeek-R1-Distill-8B · $0.109/M | Moonshot v1 8k · $0.120/M |
| Most expensive model | DeepSeek-V4-Pro · $2.26/M | Kimi K3 · $6.60/M |
| Top-tier input / output | $0.140 / $0.280 | $3.00 / $15.00 |
| Largest context window | 1,000,000 | 1,049,000 |
| Models with public benchmarks | 9 of 11 | 2 of 5 |
| Founded | 2023 | 2023 |
| Headquarters | Hangzhou, China | Beijing, China |
Counts cover text-generation models in our curated catalogue, excluding retired SKUs, embeddings and non-text products. Blended rates weight input at 70 per cent and output at 30 per cent; how that is calculated.
About each provider
DeepSeek
Open-weights frontier from a Chinese hedge-fund-backed lab. R1 reset price/performance expectations for reasoning models.
Top of the line: DeepSeek-V4-Flash at $0.140 input / $0.280 output per million tokens, 1,000,000 context.
Moonshot AI
Kimi family from Moonshot AI — long-context champion with strong reasoning at competitive pricing.
Top of the line: Kimi K3 at $3.00 input / $15.00 output per million tokens, 1,049,000 context.
Frequently asked questions
Is DeepSeek or Moonshot AI cheaper?
It depends which tier you need. DeepSeek has the lower entry price, but both run a range from budget to frontier models, so the fair comparison is tier against tier rather than vendor against vendor. Price the specific models you would actually call; the table above shows each side’s floor and ceiling.
Should I use DeepSeek or Moonshot AI?
Neither wins outright. Shortlist by the capability tier your workload needs, then compare the specific models on price, context window and benchmark evidence. Multi-vendor setups are common precisely because the cheapest adequate model for one task is rarely the same vendor as for another.
Where do these DeepSeek and Moonshot AI prices come from?
Each provider’s published rates, as tracked in our pricing index. Blended figures weight input at 70 per cent and output at 30 per cent and are calculated comparison metrics rather than published prices. Counts cover text-generation models only, excluding retired SKUs, embeddings and non-text products.
Go deeper
Other provider matchups
Figures are recomputed on every deploy from the curated catalogue. Prices checked 12 August 2026.