Everything Counts. in Large Amounts. Even AI Tokens.
looorg writes:
Every token counts. Price per AI model.
Deepseek V4-Flash about 105 times cheaper than Anthropic's Claude Fable 5.
The startup's R1 model became a global sensation in early 2025, triggering a selloff in global technology stocks and raising questions about the large amounts U.S. companies were spending on AI.
DeepSeek's V4-Flash charges $0.14 per million input tokens and $0.28 per million output tokens, according to research firm Artificial Analysis. A token is a unit of data used to measure AI usage.
San Francisco-based Artificial Analysis estimated V4-Flash's average cost at 3 cents per test, compared with 86 cents for Kimi K3 from Chinese rival Moonshot AI, $1.86 for OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol and $3.15 for Claude Fable 5.
The comparison provides a more realistic measure of value than pricing alone because it accounts for the amount of data a model must process and generate to complete a task. A model with low headline price can still prove expensive if it requires significantly more steps to produce an answer.
DeepSeek once commanded most of the headlines about Chinese AI development but was quickly besieged by many domestic rivals including other startups such as Moonshot, MiniMax and Z.AI as well as tech giants like ByteDance and Alibaba (9988.HK), opens new tab. All are vying with U.S. tech firms for global adoption, targeting businesses seeking cheaper ways to deploy AI at scale.
https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/deepseeks-new-ai-model-is-by-far-cheapest-well-known-models-run-research-firm-2026-08-03/
https://artificialanalysis.ai/
So who to turn to to maximize your daily slop, or helping AI friend.
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