ANTHROPIC VS DEEPSEEK
Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs DeepSeek V4 Pro
DeepSeek V4 Pro is about 11x cheaper than Claude Sonnet 4.6 on a blended 3:1 input:output rate — the same 10K-in/2K-out request costs $0.0061 vs $0.06. Both models have the same 1,000,000-token context window.
Pricing verified
API pricing per 1M tokens
| Model | Input / 1M tokens | Output / 1M tokens | Blended (3:1 mix) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 | $3.00 | $15.00 | $6.00 |
| DeepSeek V4 Pro | $0.435 | $0.87 | $0.544 |
Rates from official Anthropic pricing and official DeepSeek pricing, checked 2026-08-11. Note: DeepSeek made its promotional rate the official list price after 2026-05-31.
What a real workload costs
Example: one request with 10,000 input tokens and 2,000 output tokens, then that request at 100,000 runs per month.
| Model | Per request (10K in / 2K out) | Per month (100K requests) | Monthly delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 | $0.06 | $6,000 | +$5,391 |
| DeepSeek V4 Pro | $0.0061 | $609 | — |
Model your own prompt sizes and volumes in the token cost analyzer, or check caching savings with the prompt caching calculator.
Specs side by side
| Spec | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | DeepSeek V4 Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | DeepSeek |
| Context window | 1,000,000 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens |
| Model class | General text | Reasoning |
| Tokenizer | Proprietary (counts estimated) | Proprietary (counts estimated) |
Count tokens for each model on its own page: Claude Sonnet 4.6 token counter and DeepSeek V4 Pro token counter. All Anthropic models are on the Claude Token Counter. All DeepSeek models are on the DeepSeek Token Counter.
FAQ
Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs DeepSeek V4 Pro FAQ
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or DeepSeek V4 Pro?
DeepSeek V4 Pro is cheaper. At rates checked 2026-08-11, Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs $3.00 input / $15.00 output per 1M tokens, while DeepSeek V4 Pro costs $0.435 input / $0.87 output — about a 11x difference on a typical 3:1 input-heavy workload.
How much does a real request cost on Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs DeepSeek V4 Pro?
A request with 10,000 input tokens and 2,000 output tokens costs about $0.06 on Claude Sonnet 4.6 and $0.0061 on DeepSeek V4 Pro. At 100,000 such requests per month that is $6,000 vs $609 — a difference of $5,391 per month.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or DeepSeek V4 Pro?
They are equal: both support 1,000,000 tokens of context, roughly 750,000 English words shared between prompt and response.
Do Claude Sonnet 4.6 and DeepSeek V4 Pro count tokens the same way?
Not exactly. Claude Sonnet 4.6 uses a proprietary tokenizer (counts are estimates) and DeepSeek V4 Pro uses a proprietary tokenizer (counts are estimates). The same prompt will tokenize differently, which shifts effective cost per word.