DeepSeek V4 Pro vs Claude Opus 5.5
There is no quality verdict yet: the AIGROW small-business benchmark has not run Claude Opus 5.5. On price, DeepSeek V4 Pro costs less: $1.32 in and $3.96 out per million tokens, against $4 in and $20 out for Claude Opus 5.5.
US dollars, standard rate, shortest context band. Price only: the benchmark has not run both.
- DeepSeek V4 Pro
- $5.54
- Claude Opus 5.5
- $20.00
- DeepSeek V4 Pro, per M tokens
- $1.32 / $3.96
- Claude Opus 5.5, per M tokens
- $4 / $20
3,000 tokens in and 400 out each, at list price.
A low-cost open-weight frontier model against Anthropic's flagship, at about a third of the input price. 1,000 support replies cost $20.00 on Claude Opus 5.5 and $5.54 on DeepSeek V4 Pro, so Claude Opus 5.5 costs 3.6 times as much.
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 Pro
- On the DeepSeek API, DeepSeek V4 Pro costs $1.32 per million input tokens and $3.96 per million output tokens.
- Claude Opus 5.5
- On the Anthropic API, Claude Opus 5.5 costs $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens. In Claude, the cheapest plan with it is Pro at $20/mo. Plan prices read 20 October 2026. AIGROW API credit runs Claude Opus 5.5 at $1.00 / $5.00 per million input / output tokens, up to 75% below list price. See API credit
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 Pro | Claude Opus 5.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | DeepSeek | Anthropic |
| Tier | Flagships | Flagships |
| Input, per M tokens | $1.32 | $4.00 |
| Output, per M tokens | $3.96 | $20.00 |
| Cached input | $0.044 | $0.20 |
| Context window | 1M | 1M |
| Released | 13 Aug 2026 | 22 Sep 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 Pro | Claude Opus 5.5 | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Support reply3,000 in, 400 out. | $5.54 | $20.00 | DeepSeek V4 Pro, 72% less |
| Document summary25,000 in, 1,000 out. | $36.96 | $120 | DeepSeek V4 Pro, 69% less |
| Agent task80,000 in (70,000 cached), 3,000 out. | $28.16 | $114 | DeepSeek V4 Pro, 75% 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 Pro
- Peak-hour rate, recorded as the list price. Off-peak (all hours outside 01:00-04:00 and 06:00-10:00 UTC on weekdays) is half: $0.66 / $1.98, cache hit $0.022. Peak and off-peak pricing started 2026-08-16. API name deepseek-v4-pro serves DeepSeek-V4-Pro-0813 (V4 first shipped 2026-04-24). Max output 384K. DeepSeek’s pricing page
- Claude Opus 5.5
- Cache read is 0.05x input on this model ($0.20). Cache write $5 (5 min) or $8 (1 h). Fast mode $8 / $40. Batch API 50% off. US-only inference bills 1.1x. Full context window billed at standard rates. Max output 128K. Anthropic’s pricing page
Other comparisons
Every head to head on the list that involves DeepSeek V4 Pro or Claude Opus 5.5.
- Gemini 4 Argon vs Claude Opus 5.5
- Muse Wonder vs Claude Opus 5.5
- Claude Opus 5.5 vs GPT-6 Astra
- Claude Opus 5.5 vs Claude Opus 5
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Claude Opus 5.5
- Claude Fable 5.1 vs Claude Opus 5.5
- Claude Opus 5.5 vs Gemini 3.1 Pro (preview)
- Claude Opus 5.5 vs GPT-6.1 Sol
Run Claude Opus 5.5 up to 75% below list price
AIGROW API credit covers Claude Opus 5.5 at published rates never above the list prices here, and $25 buys $100 of credit.
Prices checked 15 October 2026