DeepSeek wiped $600 billion off Nvidia in January with the cheap-AI story. Today it raised its own prices up to 1,100%.

BUSINESS DEEPSEEK (PRICING PAGE UPDATE, AUG 13-14) · CLAIMED 2026-08-1306/13

DeepSeek wiped $600 billion off Nvidia in January with the cheap-AI story. Today it raised its own prices up to 1,100%.

The disruption narrative has an expiration date. V4-Pro cached input jumps from $0.0036 to $0.044 at peak. Output quadruples. The company calls it resource allocation.

01THE CLAIM

"DeepSeek is raising API prices by up to 1,100% with a new peak/off-peak billing structure, effective August 16." [SOURCE ↗]

VERIFIED6 SOURCES · LIVE 2026-08-25

DEEPSEEK TRACK RECORD3 CLAIMS · 27/100 BS RATE →

1100% maximum increase per Caixin Global (cached input at peak)

3.96USD per 1M output tokens V4-Pro peak (was $0.87)

4x multiplier on V4-Pro output at peak per Engadget

02THE CHECK

THE CLAIM. DeepSeek is raising API prices by up to 1,100% with a new peak/off-peak billing structure, effective August 16.

THE CHECK. confirmed. V4-Pro cached input tokens go from $0.00362 to $0.044 at peak hours (1,113%). Output tokens from $0.87 to $3.96 (355%). V4-Flash sees 57-400% increases. Peak hours: 01:00-04:00 and 06:00-10:00 UTC, which covers prime US working hours.

THE TWIST. seven months ago this company panicked Wall Street by training a frontier model for under $6 million and pricing it at a fraction of American competitors. The cheap-AI disruption story just hit its sell-by date.

03SAY THIS IN THE MEETING · 📸 SCREENSHOT IT

"DeepSeek wiped $600B off Nvidia seven months ago with the cheap-AI story. This week it raised API prices by as much as 1,100%. The disruption was real. The old pricing was a customer acquisition cost."

Effective August 16, 2026 at 16:00 UTC:

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