DeepSeek Free Plans, Trials, and Subscriptions: current access and pricing model

DeepSeek has built its reputation around offering both a free consumer-facing chat service and a flexible developer API. In 2025, the company clarified its approach to access, pricing, and temporary discounts. While everyday users continue to enjoy free access through the app and website, developers and enterprises rely on token-based API billing. Understanding the distinction between these environments helps clarify where DeepSeek is free, where it is paid, and what happened to promotional offers such as off-peak discounts.

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How free access works in DeepSeek chat.

The DeepSeek Chat app and website provide free access to the latest available models, currently including DeepSeek V3.2-Exp. The service is positioned as an “all-in-one free AI tool” with no published subscription tier for consumers. There is no official “Plus” or “Pro” option, and the app operates on a fair-use model.

Free users may experience throttling or slower response times during periods of heavy demand, but there is no explicit daily message cap published by the company. For individuals seeking casual or sustained interaction with DeepSeek, this environment represents the most straightforward free entry point.

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Developer and API access through tokens.

For developers and enterprises, DeepSeek operates on a pay-as-you-go API model. Each request is billed per token, with distinct prices for input and output. Importantly, the API offers discounted cached input rates: when a request reuses stable prefixes such as instructions or schema definitions, the cost of those tokens is heavily reduced.

This design encourages consistent prompt structures and can lower overall costs when applications maintain long system messages across multiple requests. There is no subscription plan for developers; usage is entirely consumption-based.

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Trials and promotions available for DeepSeek.

Unlike some competitors, DeepSeek does not currently advertise a permanent free trial for its API. There are no recurring credits offered to new developers at sign-up. Occasionally, third-party gateways such as aggregators have provided free or demo access to certain DeepSeek models, but these are not official DeepSeek programs and their limits vary.

This means that while the consumer app is permanently free, the API should be treated as a paid-only service without recurring trial allowances. Developers looking for cost relief must rely on cached input efficiencies or occasional promotional events.

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What happened to off-peak discounts.

In 2025, DeepSeek introduced temporary off-peak discounts that reduced prices by up to 75% during certain hours. These were widely publicized but were explicitly discontinued on September 5, 2025. Following that cutoff date, all API usage returned to standard pricing without time-based reductions.

At the same time, the launch of DeepSeek V3.2-Exp was paired with a 50%+ price cut across several model endpoints, reducing base input costs to under three cents per million tokens. This permanent cut effectively replaced the expiring off-peak promotion with a more stable pricing model.

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Table — Free access and paid subscriptions in DeepSeek.

Access area	Availability	Pricing model	Notes
DeepSeek Chat (App/Web)	Free for all users	No subscription; fair-use throttling	V3.2-Exp model accessible without paid plan
API (developers)	Paid usage only	Pay-as-you-go per token; cache discounts	No free tier; consumption-based billing
Promotions / Trials	Occasional via third parties	Varies by provider	Not official; limited and temporary
Off-peak discounts	Ended September 2025	N/A	Replaced by permanent API price cuts

This table summarizes how different environments define free versus paid access within the DeepSeek ecosystem.

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Operational guidance for users and organizations.

For individual users, DeepSeek remains one of the few assistants that is completely free to use through its official app. No subscription is required, and the experience is limited only by fair-use throttling. For developers, budgeting requires close attention to input and output token volumes, with cached input discounts providing the clearest path to cost savings. For enterprises, it is important to plan for API costs as a line item and not rely on the availability of free tiers.

Since off-peak pricing has ended, users should monitor new releases such as V3.2-Exp, which brought significant permanent price cuts. The effective strategy is to combine stable cached inputs with predictable workloads to maximize efficiency.

By separating free consumer use from paid developer use, DeepSeek offers clarity: the chat app remains open and free, while the API delivers professional-grade access under a transparent, usage-based billing model.

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