DeepSeek adds pay-per-request Search and Fetch APIs at $0.75 per 1,000 calls
DeepSeek's docs now list a new "Search & Fetch Pricing" table: Search and Fetch are standalone APIs billed per request, each priced at $0.75 per 1,000 successful requests.
DeepSeek’s pricing page · Change Detected
WHY IT MATTERS
Developers using the DeepSeek API get a short free window before server-side Search and Fetch calls start showing up as separate line items on Nov 1 — worth budgeting for now rather than after billing starts. Watch whether DeepSeek's rapid pricing cadence continues once the Search and Fetch meter goes live, given how often it has revised terms this year.
BY THE NUMBERS
- Per-request billing starts Nov 1, 2026 at 00:00 Beijing time
- 8 real pricing changes since tracking began in July 2026
- Just 27 days since DeepSeek's last pricing change
- Add-ons launched at 89 of 1,726 tracked changes (5.2%) in 180 days
THEIR RATIONALE
DeepSeek is giving itself a roughly four-week runway before billing kicks in, which reads as standard rollout sequencing rather than a reaction to anything. DeepSeek has made 8 real pricing changes since it started being tracked in July 2026, at an average gap of just 11 days between moves, and this one comes 27 days after the last, when DeepSeek extended its 50% off-peak API discount to Chinese public holidays.
THE SIGNAL
This is DeepSeek's first new-add-on move in the index, but the wider pattern is common: 89 pricing changes across 79 companies have added a new paid add-on in the last 180 days, 5.2% of all changes tracked. What stands out about DeepSeek specifically is the pace — 8 real changes in under three months is a cadence most API vendors don't match, following a volatile stretch in August when prices roughly doubled under a new peak/off-peak structure, then Flash pricing was cut up to 57% weeks later. Against that backdrop, a metered add-on with a month of free usage looks like a comparatively gentle move.
IN CONTEXT
DeepSeek's add-on comes just 27 days after it extended its 50% off-peak discount to Chinese public holidays, continuing an unusually fast cadence — 8 real changes since tracking began in July 2026, roughly one every 11 days. That cadence has included real swings: API prices roughly doubled in August's peak/off-peak restructuring, only for Flash pricing to be cut up to 57% weeks later. A metered Search and Fetch API, with billing deferred to November, is a smaller move by comparison but keeps the pattern going. Market-wide, 89 pricing changes across 79 companies added a new paid add-on in the last 180 days — 5.2% of all tracked changes — including Baseten's own model-lineup addition the same day.