DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is the better pick: it passed more tasks on the AIGROW small-business benchmark and has the lower list price. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash passed 18 of 20 tasks and costs $0.30 in and $1.20 out per million tokens; Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite passed 7 and costs $0.30 in and $2.50 out.
AIGROW credit covers Claude Opus 5.5, Claude Fable 5.2, Claude Fable 5.1, GPT-6 Astra, Claude Sonnet 5.5, GPT-6.1 Sol, GPT-6.1 Terra, Grok 4.7 and Gemini 4 Argon. Gemini 4 Argon below list price
$25 a month brings $110 of API credit and cancels any time; $25 once buys $100. US dollars, standard rate, shortest context band. Cost per pass from the AIGROW small-business benchmark.
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
- $1.05
- Tasks passed
- 18 of 20
- Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite
- $2.47
- Tasks passed
- 7 of 20
AIGROW small-business benchmark, failed runs included.
Budget models with 1M context, compared for document-heavy tasks. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash costs $1.05 per 1,000 passing answers on the AIGROW small-business benchmark, Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite $2.47. 1,000 support replies cost $1.90 on Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite and $1.38 on DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, so Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite costs 38% more.
What each one costs
The API price per million tokens and the cheapest app plan with each model, from the makers’ own pages. Each name opens that model’s full price page.
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
- On the DeepSeek API, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens.
- Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite
- On the Google API, Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens.
Side by side
Each maker’s published rate for its standard tier. Cached input is what a repeated prompt prefix costs once the provider has stored it.
| Fact | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | DeepSeek | |
| Tier | Small and fast | Small and fast |
| Input, per M tokens | $0.30 | $0.30 |
| Output, per M tokens | $1.20 | $2.50 |
| Cached input | $0.006 | $0.03 |
| Context window | 1M | 1.05M |
| Released | 10 Sep 2026 | 21 Jul 2026 |
| Weights | Open weights | Closed weights |
What a job costs on each
1,000 runs of each job at the two list prices. The gap moves from job to job because the models price input, output and cached context differently.
| Job | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Support reply3,000 in, 400 out. | $1.38 | $1.90 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, 27% less |
| Document summary25,000 in, 1,000 out. | $8.70 | $10.00 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, 13% less |
| Agent task80,000 in (70,000 cached), 3,000 out. | $7.02 | $12.60 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, 44% less |
The token counts are ours, chosen to look like real work; the prices are the makers’. A model with no published cache price bills the agent task’s repeated context at its full input rate.
The small print
What each base rate leaves out, from the makers’ own pages: surcharges, discounts, promotions and cache pricing.
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
- Peak-hour rate, recorded as the list price. Off-peak is half: $0.15 / $0.60, cache hit $0.003. API name deepseek-flash, which serves DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 since 2026-10-17 at unchanged prices. Max output 384K. DeepSeek’s pricing page
- Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite
- Same price for text, image, video and audio input. Batch 50% off. Cache storage $1.00 per MTok per hour. Google’s pricing page
Other comparisons
Every head to head on the list that involves DeepSeek V4.1 Flash or Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite.
- Claude Haiku 5.5 vs Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite
- GPT-6 Luna vs Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite
- GPT-5.6 Luna vs Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite
- Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite vs Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs GPT-5.6 Luna
- Qwen3.8 Flash vs DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
- Grok 4.3 vs DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
- MiniMax M3.1 Flash vs DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
Compare DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite with 52 other models
The price list sets every model’s input and output price side by side, with what a support reply, a document summary and an agent task cost on each.
Prices checked 12 November 2026