Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs DeepSeek V4 Flash
A direct API-pricing comparison between Claude Sonnet 4.6 and DeepSeek V4 Flash. Below: every cost dimension side by side, then the bottom line for a typical workload.
Bottom line
For a typical 5K-in / 1K-out request, DeepSeek V4 Flash is the cheaper choice at $0.0010 per call — 30.6× less than Claude Sonnet 4.6 at $0.030.
| Claude Sonnet 4.6Anthropic | DeepSeek V4 FlashDeepSeek | |
|---|---|---|
| Input / 1M tokens | $3.00 | $0.140 |
| Output / 1M tokens | $15.00 | $0.280 |
| Cached input / 1M | $0.300 | $0.014 |
| Context window | 200K | 128K |
| Provider | Anthropic | DeepSeek |
Green = cheaper on that line. Prices are estimates from public pricing pages; verify against Anthropic and DeepSeek before relying on them.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or DeepSeek V4 Flash?
On output tokens — usually the dominant cost — Claude Sonnet 4.6 charges $15.00 per million versus $0.280 for DeepSeek V4 Flash. The right pick depends on your input/output ratio and how much you can serve from cache. Use the calculator to model your exact traffic.